Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

When American forces pushed the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein undertook a “scorched earth” policy burning about seven hundred oil wells, thus creating one of the worst environmental disasters in history. Sebastião Salgado was quickly on the scene to document the brave men who were fighting these dangerous fires. Our first works by Salgado, these photographs show men covered in black oil, resembling both heroic bronze statues and souls emerging from hell. Although the situation was also hazardous for photographers and journalists, Salgado warned, “We must remember that in the brutality of battle another such apocalypse is always just around the corner.”