Sersa, Vladimir

(Italy-Venezuela 1946-)

Sersa arrived in Venezuela when still a child, and as a young man, abandoned his university studies in favor of photography. A member of El Grupo, an art collective featuring the likes of Luis Brito and Ricardo Armas, he developed a meticulous documentary approach to recording his travels throughout the country. His photographs, mostly in black-and-white, reveal the social and geographical context of many regions of Venezuela, overcome by abandonment and desolation, as evinced in the title of one of his series, Por aquella desolada patria (For a desolate homeland).