In 1939, a gaggle of beginner photographers in São Paulo, Brazil, based the Foto (later Foto-Cine) Clube Bandeirante. Its members—attorneys, scientists, bankers—took footage of topics, starting from structure to the pure world (“Filigree,” above, was made by Gertrudes Altschul, circa 1952), with an experimental rigor rivalling that of any avant-garde artist. “Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography, 1946-1964,” at moma (by way of Sept. 26), surveys the membership’s work, starting the 12 months that it launched the influential journal Boletim.
