At 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair

The Cinematic eye of West African photographer Paul Kodjo: The Ivorian Miracle in the 1970’s

Saturday May 4, 2019, 6:30 – 7:30pm

Forum Room/1-54 at Industria, 775 Washington Street, New York City

Panelists:

Ananias Leki Dago (photographer and founder of Les Rencontres du Sud)

Antawan Byrd (art historian and assistant curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago).

Moderator:

Claude Grunitzky (media and culture entrepreneur, founder of TRACE and the media platform TRUE Africa).

During this panel, we will look at what makes Paul Kodjo’s photographic practice different from other West African studio photographers of the same period. Ananias Leki Dago has worked for the last ten years at preserving Kodjo’s photographic archive and will describe the artist’s journey, while Antawan Byrd will speak of Kodjo’s cinematic approach and aesthetic engagement with visual art and popular media, in particular the photo-novel. Claude Grunitzky will bring his own experience with popular media while highlighting this unique record of Abidjan being reshaped by social cultural changes and modernist design and architecture.

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For the first time in the last 14 years a year has elapsed since I have set foot on the African continent. Health issues got in the way of my travels, however my engagement with African art has not waned. Indeed during the past year I have been discovering the 1970’s photographic work of Paul Kodjo from Abidjan,  in the Ivory Coast. I am about to fly out to Abidjan to meet the artist who is now in his 80’s. I will be there when he signs the photographs that I have bought and discover the city!

The first time I saw Kodjo’s black and white photographs I found them immediately compelling. 

Working within the tradition of African traditional studio photography but pushing its boundaries, Kodjo photographed his subjects outside of the studio in staged modern domestic indoors and in the streets of Abidjan,  creating a unique record of Abidjan during  the years  of the economic boom of the early post-independence years. While blurring the lines between the real and the imaginary Kodjo used a cinematic approach and introduced movement and dramatic tensions drawing the viewer into his subjects lives: their relationships and emotions. These carefully crafted scenes  echo the shifting social and familial dynamics against the backdrop of  renewal of the urban landscape shaped by modernist design and architecture. But they also speak to the city dweller’s aspirations.

I first responded to the emotional aspect which I feel is lacking in some of contemporary photography which is more focused on the surface aesthetic and loved the sets and his talent as a portraitist.

Then as I learned about his practice which also includes photojournalism, fashion and event photography, and the condition under which these images had been brought recently to the public I was hooked! 

So hooked that I will now be showing Paul Kodjo’s works  from my collection at the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in New York city, May 2-5, 2019. I have now turned into a curator ( with the help of curator Lydie Diakhate). The exhibition will be complemented by a panel on Saturday May 4th on Kodjo’s work. The panelists are Ananias Lèki Dago (photographer from Abidjan and Founder of Les Rencontres du Sud) ) and Antawan Byrd (art historian and assistant curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago) . The moderator is Claude Grunitzky (Founder of TRACE magazine  and TRUE Africa) .   

It was through Ananias Lèki Dago, photographer and founder of Les Rencontres du Sud ( a photographic platform in Ivory Coast in support of Ivoirian photography) , that I first came across Paul Kodjo’s work. In 2008 Paul Kodjo had asked Ananias to take on his photographic archive. It was a mixed blessing.  It was an honor, as Kodjo had been one of the  preeminent photographers of the 1970’s in Abidjan, but a huge challenge as the negatives were in very bad conditions due to terrible climatic conditions, and economic and political instability. 

“ On the day [I] returned to Abidjan, I saw a boy carrying a large trunk on his head walking towards me. When he reached me, he put his burden down at my feet. It was Paul who had sent him. I still remember the shivers that went down my spine  when he opened the trunk and I saw the roaches, spiders, and other insects, all too alive, scuttle away from their hiding places. I put my hand on the pile of negatives and old prints damaged by humidity. ….In the end, I agreed to be responsible for taking care of Paul Kodjo’s archive.” 

Ananias took the archive to Paris where the negatives were then shielded from the negative effects of the humidity but it took a few years before he had the time and the money to be able to fully start the preservation process with the help of the printer, Toros. By 2018 Ananias was able to show portions of the archive to the Musèe du Quai Branly in Paris who bought a selection.  The photographs are not vintage but contemporary prints made from this archive. As a result a few show signs of this history, others look totally pristine. As an art historian by training I liked those traces of history.  There is so much artistic work that has vanished in Africa and the history of its artistic production is still in the making. 

Ananias send me a whole lot of information.  I discovered that Kodjo was one of the few at the time that had sought formal training in photography: He had followed a correspondence course with the New York Institute of Photography when he was quite young and then continued his formal training in photography and cinematography in Paris in the late sixties.  

He was the first in the Ivory Coast and possibly (?) in West Africa  to turn to popular media for the production and dissemination of his photographic production. He adopted the roman-photo or photo-novel,  which was published in the national periodical Ivoire Dimanche with broad popular exposure. 

I did research of my own spending hours at Northwestern Herkovits library and the New York Schomburg library where I found  copies of the periodical Ivoire Dimanche which include Paul Kodjo’s roman-photos (photo-novels). Not only did I read the roman-photos but also read many articles that spoke of marriage ( infidelity, monogamy, polygamy,)  shifting aspirations, women and men at work which are all subjects raised in Kodjo’s roman-photos. 

Paul Kodjo worked in photography, in cinema; he also was an actor ( there is a wonderful picture of him playing the role of a woman in a play)  and a musician.  

Kodjo embraced contemporaneity in a way that artists do today in terms of culture, technology, and media. He deserves his rightful place in the pantheon of West African photographers. 

I just came back from two weeks in Paris and London where I checked out the extensive showing of African art. I am just amazed how the showing of Contemporary African art has taken off in Europe and in particular Paris. The efforts of curators, gallerists, collectors, and institutions are bearing fruits.

Paris is changing. It is home to an increasing amount of people from North and Sub- Sahara Africa. As a result there is a concerted effort to share African art and culture with a broader audience. Going beyond the exclusive art fairs and museums African art is made accessible at the Parc de La Villette with an exhibition “ Afrique Capitales” that partially spilled into the park with its large scale photographic works and where the admission was only 5 euros!

Furthermore recognizing at once the increased relevance/impact of African culture in a society that includes a growing proportion of people of African origin and the creative potential of a collaboration/fusion of Western and African fashion, the department store, the Galeries Lafayette, hosted under the title “Africa Now” a series of artistic events .

It asked the Nigerian photographer Lakin Ogubanwo to design the department store window displays. I was quite thrilled to see that he had been selected and that his work was going to be exposed so broadly. Lakin started his photographic career in fashion so he brings to the task at hand his sleek sense of style, and colorful palette. He combines and layers his stylish photographic and video work, with the recent fashion lines by designers who have been inspired by African prints (wax, batik, kasai).

This is not the ravaged and poor Africa but a colorful and exotic Africa. Some would say that it further promotes an essentialist vision of Africa at the detriment of a more nuanced and diverse reality. Obviously it is true – how could people of 54 countries all be the same – however we are in the world of consumerism, branding and fashion. Simple ideas sell better than complex realities. Furthermore, Lakin lives in vibrant and chaotic Lagos and conveys here his experience of the creativity he sees in his city where many African and other cultures coexists.

On the first floor art gallery of the department store Marie- Ann Yemsi curated an art exhibit “ Le Jour qui vient” – a lovely poetic title – of emerging contemporary African artists works. It favored video and photographic works and mixed media installations.

Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze wonderfully playful drawing on paper was the exception to the rule. Gone are traditional materials such as paint. Materials and images are recycled, rearranged, layered.

Turiya Magadlela stretches women’s tights across the canvases creating colorful grids, Igshaan Adams uses string, rope, beads, found fabric like curtain tassels to create a majestic tapestry that makes me think of a wall of foliage.

Clay Apenouvon drapes black plastic along the wall and lets it spill like black oil onto the floor seemingly oozing out into black puddles, which morph into plastic garbage bags. Frances Goodman uses the yellow hood of a BMW as her canvas. Color and material matter. They mean something and yet that meaning shifts as the material is reused in a different context. Ideas, materials, people circulate reflecting migratory patterns, a questioning and breakdown of traditional classifications , a more global world and a continuously shifting landscape.

The romantic and exotic idea of the “African Landscape” considered a colonial legacy, is challenged in two photographic works. Monica De Miranda proposes the jungle landscape but hers is interrupted, one might say ruptured into three disconnected parts. Mohau Modisakeng’s photographs from the Bophirima series places him wearing a horse’s headgear walking through an asphalt landscape. It is stark and foreboding and speaks of the long history of violence in South Africa.  Mohau is showing at the Venice Biennale and I am looking forward to seeing his work there.

Under the Galeries Lafayette’ vaulted glass roof  hung Joel Andrianomearisoa‘s black banners which unfortunately I did not see.

I love that even though I now spend my summers in Provence in an adorable house in the foothills of the Luberon I don’t have far to go to see good African art. The Photography Festival at Arles – Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles – is an hour away and this year South African artist and activist Zanele Muholi curated with artist Walead Beshty the exhibition Systemically open?New Forms of Production of the Contemporary Image, which among other artists showed her latest body of work Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail, the Dark Lioness).

I encountered Muholi’s work in 2009 in South Africa and met her in Bamako during the Rencontres de Bamako. She was just starting to get known internationally for her work on the LBGTI community. Already an activist she was speaking up for this community that was greatly suffering from hate crimes in South Africa and beyond. At the time she was getting attention for a body of work, the Miss D’vine series. She photographed black queens and drag artists set in an “African” landscape.

“The photos examine how gender and queer identities and bodies are shaped by – but also resist, through their very existence – dominant notions of what it means to be black and feminine”. (Zanele Muholi, 2009). This series was visually alluring and conceptually provocative. I fancied more her photographs of gay women in their own homes. I liked how she captured these quiet private moments with tenderness bringing the viewer into their private world.

Simultaneously she was already working on a long term project, the series Faces and Phases where she documents members of the South African LBGTI community. The work is very different formally. Color had been reduced to black and white. All theatricality had been removed in favor of a formal and deadpan approach. Intent on giving visibility to a community that has suffered from being invisible her focus is unwavering as she imbues the women with a pregnant dignity. This series has received much international attention and praise.

I was familiar with the body of work being shown at Arles– a work of self-portraiture – but I was not expecting the huge scale of the display. Installed in one of the recently renovated Ateliers of the Luma space Zanele had had some of her photographs printed the size of the huge walls. Wow! There was no way of avoiding her unflinching gaze.

In this new body of work she turns the camera on herself. The work is essentially autobiographical. Born in Umlazi, Durban to a working class family (her South African mother was South African domestic worker and her Malawian father a day laborer) Muholi was at first a hairstylist and factory worker before embracing fully her artistic career. There is a theatrical aspect to the work as she uses props, such as materials she created herself and found objects, clothe pins, scouring pads, various hats, wigs to name a few which reference her experiences. She plays with the color of her skin, most of the time darkening it, “reclaiming her darkness” she says.

Unlike Samuel Fosso or Cindy Sherman she is not pretending to be someone else. On the contrary she is making herself vulnerable by exposing aspects of herself and her history, which has been shaped by South African political, cultural and social history. It is as if she is play acting in front of the mirror like I remember doing when I was younger but with great vulnerability as she exposes herself to herself, and to all of us. The result is a multifaceted Zanele, increasingly hard to pinpoint and because of that, that much more fascinating and endearing. All the while she is forcing her audience, us, to confront our own discomfort with some of her uncompromising exposure. Read here a description of her process.

“I have embarked on a discomforting self-defining journey, rethinking the culture of the selfie, self-representation and self-expression. I have investigated how photographers can question and deal with the body as material or mix it with objects to further aestheticise black personhood. My abiding concern is, can photographers look at themselves and question whom they are in society and the positions that they hold, and maintain these roles thereafter? ( Somnyama Ngonyama, Zanele Muholi, Stevenson).

Zanele Muholi was a little tardy for a scheduled talk during the opening week of the Arles festival. She eventually appeared, slowly moving towards the panel like a queen . She had an amazing hairdo almost 8 inches high above her head. I just loved that hard won self-assurance. What a great example!

Read the review of the exhibition in the New York Times for more information.

Obi James Ikechukwu Anyasi II, Obi of Idumuje Unor

George Osodi who is internationally famous for his powerful photographic series on the damage being done on the environment and life in the oil rich Niger delta, is now celebrating Nigerian cultural heritage.   His new series Nigeria Monarchs on view in a splendid exhibition Royals & Regalia: Inside the palaces of Nigeria’s Monarchs at the Newark Museum captures from an African perspective – Osodi emphasizes this point – the contemporary cultural relevance of today’s Nigerian kings in the process of peace making at a local level and in preserving a sense of cultural identity.

“ Nigeria is not only rich in natural resources but also in its religious and cultural diversity. I believe this should be a source of strength and unity among the country’s various ethnic groups, rather than something that creates division and instability. Documenting and archiving culture is a key to understanding cultural origins, and thus developing a sense of identity.”

The Emir of Kano Alhaji Ado Bayero

Osodi is driven here by a sense of pride and a timely desire to encourage unity in front of recent challenges such as stark inequality and continuous incursions by Boko Haram in the North. While Nigeria is a republic and those kings have no constitutional power the central government is very distant from the local populace and relies on the kings to keep peace. Osodi reminds us not to look at his country – artificially carved by the colonial powers – through the sole prism of our western experience with democracy but to understand and appreciate its own history and cultural ressources.

Pere Donokoromo II, The Pere of Isaba Kingdom

There are many kings maybe almost 2000 says Osodi who aims to photograph 100 of them. He has photographed 50 kings by now in full regalia in a setting of their choosing. Most of them are seated on a throne or standing in their palaces often with their attendants at their side in keeping with the more traditional way of recording power and privilege. Adorned with the traditional regalia – beaded headdress and necklaces – they exude quiet dignity and wisdom. What makes this series particularly dynamic is the inclusion of more candid shots of the kings, the emphasis on architectural setting, interior décor, and rich textiles. Visually it is a feast for the eyes. The monarchs’ love of color and adornment and their individual taste is wonderfully captured and adds whimsy to the serial quality of the project and the sense of permanence that exudes from these portraits.

Emir of Zauzau (Zaria) Alhaji Dr. Shehu Idris

Oba Okunade Sijuwade Olubuse II, OONI of Ife

Osodi’s professional background is documentary photography and his Monarchs series situates itself within a longstanding tradition of African portraiture. However, he brings to this tradition a contemporary flair and an artistic eye evident in his conceptual approach and his play with color and texture.

Benjamin Ikenchucku Keagborekuzi I, The Dein of Abgor Kingdom

HRH Queen Hajiya Hadizatu Ahmeda,Magajiya of Knubwada

Some of these monarchs were crowned in early childhood: At a dinner giving by Christa Clarke, the curator of the exhibition, I sat next to HRM Benjamin Ikenchuku Keagborekuzi, The Dein of Agbor Kingdom who was crowned as the age of two. He was raised in the UK and straddles both worlds. I was quite happy to see that two women monarchs were included in the show. One of them has had a successful career in the US prior to taking on her regal responsibilities. Hers was not an isolated case; many of the monarchs are successful professionals in their civilian lives. The contemporary reality of their lives added to the fusion of the traditional and the contemporary evident in the outfits and settings took care of any feeling of anachronism that might have lurked in my Western mind.

We landed in Joburg at the crack of dawn after a 15 hours flight, which while long was stress free! Listening to some of the other people we met up with at Joburg who had taken at least 24 hours to get there our journey looked like a piece of cake! This was the first time I was taking my boyfriend to Joburg so I was making sure to limit the hurdles. We met up with Diane and Chuck Frankel who were there with members of the Getty photography council. Diane was introducing them to the Joburg art scene. It is good to know that the Getty is interested in exploring the work of photographers from the African continent!

The next few days were filled with art visits much of them organized by Diane.

While Joburg can seem miles away from everything some of the main galleries there are showing artists that have a worldwide presence.

We stopped at the Goodman gallery on Jan Smutts avenue to see Liza Lou’s beautiful new exhibition called Canvas. Liza Lou is a California American artist who became known for her beaded life –size replica of a suburban kitchen.  She subsequently moved to Durban, South Africa where she is producing a body of work, which is more minimalist. The surface of the “painting” is the subject of this exhibition.  Liza’s works are made solely out of beads. Local Zulu women weave bands of identical off-white beads that Liza provides for them. She then sows the bands together in a unique pattern that integrates the ruptures, pockmarks, and streaks that stain the surface of the bands and are the marks of the weavers’ lives. The resulting “canvases” inspire a quiet and meditative response much like Rothko’s dark canvases in the Rothko chapel. To fully take the effect in I had to sit down and let my eyes slowly adjust so that I could became aware of all the nuances of color in these monochromatic works. Indeed her beaded canvases call for slowing down, taking in the moment, letting things unfold gradually, and challenges one to sit with oneself. There is no big bang or wow. The beauty lies in the holding of the image and gradually feeling whole.

Her more recent work shows her loosening up her grip and letting in a tiny bit of mayhem in her structured design. I loved that piece too.

That evening David Brodie gave us a tour of Serge Alain Nitegeka show at Michael Stevenson gallery. At the entrance of the gallery I ran into Nandipha Mntambo looking FABULOUS. Wearing her hair long and braided she had totally changed style and was presenting a more feminine version of herself. Wearing muted make up, sheathed in a slim-fitting dress and perched on high heels she exuded happiness and confidence. She was just as thrilled to see Diane and I. We had not seen her since our time together last fall in San Francisco.

We then all made our way through the first room of the gallery, which had been reduced to a narrow pathway. Nitegeka had carved out the space with big black sheets of cardboard restricting our space and movements, in other words constricting our freedom. I felt constricted and aware of trying to keep my balance as I walked through the narrow path. Nitegeka considers himself a sculptor of objects and of space and is well known for his installations. However this particular exhibition Into the Black included mostly of painted wooden panels.  It was clear from the geometric forms painted on crates that space was a major concern.

The most powerful piece to me here was the triptych in the second room. Broad black diagonals defined the surface plane while also obstructing our view of the fictive space in the “painting”.  The black bands become obstacles in the path of the indeterminate figures trying to make their way through a fictive space behind the bands. I felt a sense of constrictive power as well as a feeling of struggle. At once abstract and figurative the triptych conveys in formal terms the anguish and struggle of the migrant.

A tall, handsome and elegantly dressed young man, Serge spoke to us about his work. While his concerns here are the exploration of formal and philosophical blackness he speaks also of his experience of escaping the terrible situation in Burundi and moving to South Africa and of the challenges he encountered along the way. I did not like everything I saw but the caliber of the work and his ability to convey through formal means his experience without being literal is impressive and very effective. He also shows at Marianne Boesky in the USA.

Later that evening during a casual dinner at a local haunt I had a wonderful talk with a very smart and talented young artist who works mostly with photography: Mame-Diarra Niang. I checked out her work, which is being shown this month at the Stevenson gallery in Cape Town and I liked it. Creating mostly urban landscapes Mame is expressing her dismay at how much certain places she has known in Africa while she was growing up are losing their specificity and flavor and becoming sterile.  Her views become abstract spaces and instead of transporting us into another world we are lead to look back into oneself.

On the photography front, my main focus, we met Jodi Bieber who came to talk to us at the Goodman Gallery about her work and in particular her latest series: Real Beauty and Quiet and Soweto. Real Beauty and Quiet are series of portraits of anonymous people who agreed to pose in their homes. In Real Beauty the women pose in their underwear and chose the setting. Here Jodi is challenging the media’s idea of what is real beauty by capturing on camera the pride of these multi shaped women from all age groups.

In Quiet she aims to give us an alternative view of masculinity: the men she photographs are posing in moments of vulnerability.

In Soweto she captures on her camera how life really is in the township of Soweto; not the image of a poor community riddled with violence but of a town where people from all walks of life, rich and poor, live, work and play well beyond the township’s history of struggle with apartheid. I could remember my first time in Soweto arriving with my own preconceived notion and being surprised to see the variety of housing ranging from rudimentary housing to spacious mansions with gardens.

Diane arranged for us to make a quick stop at the fashion designer Marianne Fassler’s home and shop. Marianne is a hoot and her very personal collection of South African art is an expression of her temperament: eclectic, colorful, fun, adventurous. She collects with her husband but he acknowledges that he mostly differs to her taste, as she is the creative one!

No minimalism here; instead there is a focus on crafts, imagination, color, and shapes. We left with big smiles on our faces. Her fun loving, inclusive and generous nature was such a booster!

This was a lead up to the Joburg fair, which was a bustling affair, at least the night of the opening. It was good to see a lot of youngish South African looking to buy art and being quite involved with the dealers. Portia Zvavahera was the star of the fair having won the 2014 FNB Art Prize. A young painter from Zimbabwe Portia lives in Harare and is a mother and a wife when she is not painting. Her expressionist canvases which combine textile-like printed patterns with an almost child like way of painting, are inspired by her dreams and speak of her experience with marriage, childbirth and parental love.

Her figures brightly clad are set against richly colored backgrounds. They consistently adopt postures that convey deep emotion tempered in a way by the child like way of painting, which allows us some detachment to what is being depicted and witnessed. Portia clearly loves color and I very much like the way she incorporates those decorative patterns with the otherwise loose wash.

William Kentridge was signing his latest book – 2^nd Hand Reading – at the Goodman gallery.  Each typed page has one of his many drawings printed on it. I bought a copy since I am into buying artist books these days! Much cheaper than buying an original of each!

While waiting for my book I lingered in front of Kuzanai Chiurai’s photograph called Moyo. An absolutely stunning picture it brings up in me a mix of emotion. I felt mesmerized by the deep sorrow and accusation inherent in the young woman’s gaze and deeply moved, yet the bleeding corpse made me at the same time slightly recoil. A beautiful young woman holds the bleeding body of a young man. The formal composition references the classical composition of the Pieta but here the scene is set in a lush jungle and lit by an artificial light that suggest divine lighting. This image comes from his film Moyo and makes reference to the public acts of violence and in particular the Marikana strike: the wildcat strike in the South African Leonmin mine which resulted in many workers death. The title means Air and the image captures the moment in death when the air or spirit leaves the body. He incites the viewers to mourn.

Chiurai, born and raised in Zimbabwe experienced first hand the violence of the Mugabe regime. Now living and working in South Africa his mixed media work tackles the political and social issues that concern his world.

I love this other image, which is part of a body of work called The State of the Nation. In highly theatrical and provocative images he critiques the corrupt ways African revolutionary leaders have dealt with their newfound powers. Intent in sparking a conversation with the African youth in their context he creates images that are dark and brash in their imagery and humor.

Fighting my way through the crowd – it certainly was not like that two years ago – I stopped at Brundyn + Gonsales to look at Mohau Modisakeng’s new photographs that had been part of a large installation for his debut solo exhibition “Ditaola” at Brundyn + . As with his earlier work, Mohau’s images refer to some mysterious ritual whereby he addresses his concerns with South Africa’s tortuous and violent history and current times while delving into personal memories. In this particular instance it is the memory of his mother recounting her dreams. Mohau has a penchant for the symbolic and the theatrical and in these photographs his body becomes the means by which he constructs narratives that address his personal and political concerns.

Set against a green background wearing a pleated animal skin kilt, he stands like an archetypal warrior holding a gun, a symbol of violence and a dove, symbol of peace. The dove departs spraying white dust and returns in other images. Is this a meditation on the precariousness of peace? I feel I am witnessing a mysterious ritual to which I have only small inklings.

Totally different in tenor and style, I liked also at Brundyn +, Jody Paulsen’s bright and colorful wall hangings and photographs. Paulsen is fascinated with fashion and commodity culture ie: branding, clichés in advertising. He is able to mix quite effectively African and European influences in his eclectic vision. I particularly liked his photographs of figures against patterned fabrics. While they were not portraits they certainly referenced the traditional African Studio portrait now turned into a pop version of itself and hollowed out of its original intent.

I was in the mood for fun obviously that day since my eye and mind got mesmerized with Cristina de Middel installation “The Afronauts”. A body of work that includes photographs, drawings, and sculptures, The Afronauts mixes facts and fiction to tell the story of Zambia’s 1964 space project. Cristina is a half -Spanish, half-Belgian photojournalist turned artist who got inspired by the optimism of this story. It is a refreshing antidote to the troubled image one has of the continent. Following Zambia’s independence in 1964, Edward Makuka Nkoloso, the founder and sole member of Zambia’s National Academy of Science, Space Research initiated a mission to send the first African astronauts to Mars. It came to nothing but I love that Nkoloso believed that he could and even tried! I love this capacity to dream and hope!

I had seen part of the work in Arles the previous year and was thrilled to see it again. This time I talked to the artist, and bought her book.

Walking to the bar to get my glass of rose wine I stopped in shock ( at first) when I saw two sets of couples, naked – two men and two women – each couple holding a mirror between them and moving around the mirror as if in some kind of contest. This dance Ritual Resist was choreographed by artist Kendell Geers.  ” A man and a woman engaged in the martial art of vanity. Neither can see the other and both struggle against their own reflection in a square mirror.” K-G. Why shock? Mainly because I was not expecting this. Many of us obviously were captivated abut some reason no pictures were taken or at least posted anywhere!

I was charmed by Namsa Leuba’s fashion photographs exhibited by LagosPhoto ( part of the festival).  Bright, cheeky, witty and technically brilliant her images focus on African identity perceived by Western eyes. She recontextualises African artifacts to fit a western perspective and in doing so challenges both cultures preconceived ideas of the other.

Another artist to follow is Patrick Willocq whose work was shown at the Arles Photo Festival ( Les Rencontres d’Arles). A few booths were showing his work.

Photography is an important medium in South Africa and particularly in Joburg. The famous photographer David Goldblatt started the Market Photo Workshop in 1989 and artists like Jodi Bieber made their start at the workshop. We went to visit it and met some of the young artists there. See next post.

After four days going around Joburg where one does little walking since it is so spread out I was looking forward to going on many bush walks in Zambia, our next destination. I also needed to hear the sounds of the bush. However I was not relishing a 4 am wake up call to catch a 6:30am flight to Lusaka. The rest of the group stayed in Joburg a few more days before going down to Cape Town for more art viewing.

“Self portraiture is a way of writing without words. My aim is to reveal the deepest parts of myself.”

Hélène Amouzou

Hélène Amouzou’s ephemeral and ghostly self-portraits caught my attention. While in these two photographs she does not truly appear, her absence points to her presence if only by suggestion.“ Her ghostly image haunts each frame and hovers in the no man’s land between absence and presence.”

Hélène was born in Togo and has been living with her daughter in Brussels for the last 14 years. These photographs were taken in the attic of her residence during a two-year period when Amouzou was seeking asylum in Belgium and waiting for her official residency visa. In her self-portraits she removes herself pointing to the loss of identity and self that is the result of a life lived as an immigrant waiting for legitimacy in her new country of residence.

In a nod to Malick Sidibe she overlays pattern of clothing over pattern of background but here she forgoes the figure totally. The dress is on a hanger and set against the torn wall papering of the wall. She is nowhere to be seen and her absence is painfully felt. When she appears, blurred and unsubstantial, she merges with her surrounding.

She is barely visible behind a vase full of colorless leaves and flowers.

She chooses to work with black and white film rather than digital media favoring the effect of chance. Forgoing the sleekness and color vibrancy of contemporary photography, the world she portrays – her world – is devoid of color and at times of physical substance. The psychological weight is that much more convincing and poignant as a result. She does appear in her photographs, most of the time naked, exposing her vulnerability while at the same time challenging perhaps a deeply ingrained Eurocentric ethnological gaze. Her work while indebted to Francesca Woodman is uniquely personal. Her voice is a quiet voice yet one that echoes the experience of many immigrants from Africa and deserves all our attention.