This summer I had the good fortune to be asked to write an essay on the photographic work of Nigerian photographer George Osodi .As a result I found myself esconced in the Metropolitan Museum Watson Library doing research and struggling over each word of each sentence! This was not to be a blog post but something more substantial and so the pressure was on!

Researching portraiture I found out that an exhibition on West African photographic portraiture was scheduled at the Met in early fall. So here I was yesterday off to the Met in search of this exhibition and another exhibition of South African Jo Ractliffe’s photographs. With the extraordinary exhibition on the Kong It seemed that it was Africa month at the Metropolitan Museum. While there were plenty of panels directing one to the wonderful Kongo: Power and Majesty exhibit, unfortunately there was almost no indication for the two photographic shows which had been tucked away on the mezzanine level off to the side of the modern and contemporary galleries. Not located next to each other, one could see one exhibit without even knowing that there was another one nearby. That was unfortunate.

The exhibition In and Out of the Studio: Photographic Portraits from West Africa though too modest in size considering that photographic portraiture was an established genre during the one hundred year period examined here included some true gems. The eighty photographs were drawn in most part from the Metropolitan Museum’s Visual Resource Archives with additions from the Department of Photographs.

The photographic material was mostly of small scale and included some wonderful postcards from the late Nineteenth century. At the time patrons would have themselves photographed professionally according to their wishes. Often they favored a formal portrait and these postcards would be exchanged as gifts and more often than not circulated beyond their circle of friends to end up in the collections of colonial collectors.

Amateur photography was practiced and there are some exquisite candid shots taking during leisure time from the early 20^th century of people from Saint –Louis, Senegal, evolving in a familial setting.

There are early photos, the size of a postcard, from Malick Sidibe, which are framed in decoratively painted cardboard. Works by Oumar Ka, Seydou Keita, J.D.Okhai Ojeikere and Samuel Fosso complete this small selection, which includes mostly early works of these artists who went on to shape a unique West African style of portrait photography.

The Aftermath of Conflict: Jo Ractliffe’s Photographs of Angola and South Africa was a very sobering exhibition. Mostly through photographic landscapes Ractliffe focuses on the aftermath of the Border War between Angola and South Africa (1966-89) and the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002) ,which ended up by being a proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union. By addressing themes of displacement, conflict, history, memory and erasure she sheds a stark light on the lasting effects of these conflicts on the local population and war veterans. . Her idea of landscape goes against the ubiquitous idea of the romantic African landscape rich in color, tone and texture. In other words her landscapes are not at all like the shots that I like to take as I walk the bush in Kenya where I favor deep vistas, and dramatic perspectives! Only using black and white film, in a very deliberate fashion she avoids dramatic perspectives, anything sensational and even shies away at times from being explicit as to what is the main point of interest in the landscape. She favors bleached out empty landscapes, with little tonal contrast. In no way does she attempt to seduce the viewer or allow any flight of fancy to creep up in our minds except for a pervasive sense of silence and emptiness.

A beach scene with the wreck of a Chinese ship in the background, shanty huts perched on the side of a hill littered with garbage, a close up of a thorn tree covered with drying laundry, a barren desert with objects perched on a stone outcrop give scant information as to the significance of the scenes.

The pole protruding from this outcrop carries a banner that marks the place as a memorial, of what? One is not sure. However this location is close to a Cuban base at Namibe I on Angola’s southwestern coast where an extensive network of trenches , bunkers, and antiaircraft defense are located.

A grass field that seems empty except for a sign saying “Terreno Ocupado” establishes the historical context of Angola with its long history of occupation and turmoil.

Conflicts that seemed abstract when she was growing up become subtly concrete as she reminds us of the many lives impacted by these wars. By making us feel their absence they become alive.

‘There are some very poignant things in the landscape, like these markers, that seem to say, “I have been here, people have been here.” ’ says Jo Ractliffe. Leaving the exhibition I found myself walking with a heavier heart.

Sunday, May 20th, the Lisa Cooley gallery saw an unusual sight- cassette tapes.

Brooklyn’s Brian Shimkovitz, author of popular blog Awesome Tapes from Africa, brought his collection of rare African tapes from across the continent to the intimate Lower East Side venue.

In between mounted pieces by Michael Bauer, Shimkovitz took us on an audio journey across Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Senegal.

The early crowd gathered a bit back from the DJ table, taking in the surroundings, the percussive, uplifting beats and the stack of over a hundred tapes incased within colorful jackets.

From Matthew: “The blog is meant to shed light on stuff that isn’t covered by the excellent funk and afro-rock and afro-psychedelic releases that have been coming out, as well as what’s typically available at Amazon. I feel like there’s so much crazy fascinating stuff out there that people could get into.”

View more from Awesome Tapes from Africa here, and visit lisa-cooley.com for more info on upcoming exhibits.

He was quite a striking figure with his very long dread locks and colored clothes, which he wears both as a reflexion of his religious beliefs. He is a member of the Baye Fall, a specifically Senegalese form of Islam and part of the larger Islamic brotherhood of Mouridism.

In his own words: ” In Baye Fall, we have something called a jarasse. It’s the multi-colored clothes that I wear most of the time. And the music on my album, Jamm is a kind of jarasse because it has many colors. If you unite this patchwork of colors, what do you get? You get harmony, and harmony is life.  Musically, I’m very open to new ideas, new colors. That’s the source of the variety in my music. “

Omar Ba’s paintings present a colorful, fantastic, at times chaotic world where the order of things as we perceive them in the visible world is turned on its head. Giant plants tower over a miniature human world gripped by globalization; huge mother and father figures become hybrid godlike creatures at once terrifying and seductive because of the sheer beauty of Omar Ba’s craftsmanship and decorative use of saturated color.  His highly imaginative personal imagery fuses personal metaphors and ancestral symbols that reflect the animist belief that all plant, animal and human life has a soul. His symbolism is charged with meaning and builds a narrative around political themes critical of the power systems that exists in Africa. Omar Ba works well on a small scale and delivers a powerful message but I also like the ambitious and more complex visions reflected in his large scale works which strive to integrate multiple time, spatial and psychological realities though a juxtaposition of skillfully painted vignettes. These vignettes coexist on the same plane physically, but through shifts of scale defying traditional perspective they shed light on the layered meaning of his paintings and reveal what lies beyond appearances. There is a formal push and pull effect that draws the viewer in and requires time to fully apprehend the full meaning of the painting.

His paintings are done on simple cardboard and present a mix of oil paint, gouaches and ink. Omar Ba always blackens the cardboard with black opaque paint at times layering it with a coat of white feathery, slightly iridescent brushstrokes. While content matters here I was also enchanted by painting passages, which revealed Omar Ba’s love for the process of painting and skillful use of decorative elements.