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.

First I am thrilled that Artur Walther, a German collector who owns a very extensive collection of photography, and in particular African photography has decided to open this space in New York City / Chelsea, solely dedicated to African Photography. The satellite of a main exhibition venue in Neu-Ulm/Burlafingen, Germany, the project space is located at 526 West 26^th St. It is designed in a typical modernist fashion with pristine white walls, and includes a nice library space where you can buy Walther‘s scholarly publications. To my Westernized eyes shaped by the modernist aesthetic, the photographs look fabulous in that setting. But I can’t help thinking that there is something puzzling- might I say even inappropriate –  in the presentation of African photography in this modernist “white cube”. To me, Africa is colorful, chaotic, loud, and barely touched by Western modernism. That is one of the reasons I love it. It has its own sets of rules and traditions. Africa rebels against the stricture that the West continues to impose. I will venture to say that this exhibition setting is yet another colonizing act but hey, it looks good! And lets face it, there is no way around the authoritarian demands of Western modernism. So I  am immensely grateful for his project space.

The photo selection for the announcement and cover of the catalog is wonderfully stylish. Both photographs show a trio of young men looking out towards the viewer. The two groupings are equally self-conscious, keenly aware of their posture and appearance; Keita and Sanders capture the arrogance of youth in its new found identity.

Seydou Keita’s photographs are hung in the first part of the room and are striking by their theatricality. The carefully selected outfits are meant to convey social status, heritage, and tradition interplaying with modernity. They reveal the people’s playful sense of style, love of the accessory and decoration, and their sense of pride. Okwui Enwezor in speaking of Keita’s photographs describes that  “the use of props..can be understood as enabling the possibility of play, the idea of constructing an image of the sitter, and thus the myth of status, that may be attributed to the objects employed in the game.” In contrast to Sander’s desire to capture what is true about his subjects Keita’s portraiture becomes an instrument of myth-making and self-fashioning. Such a gathering of Sander’s photos is also a rare site in New York City. The selection is extensive and as such illustrates well Sander’s purpose as described by Gabriele Conrath-Scholl to “establish a record both of the various social classes and of their environments.”  The photographs demand close scrutiny because it is in the details (posture, work accessory) that the social identity is conveyed.

Both artists carefully construct the image to convey the social identity of the sitter and yet differences are highlighted by the juxtaposition of the two bodies of work. Keita’s images speak of his subjects’ social aspirations while Sander’s images conveys the current social status of his sitters. Furthermore there is a directness in Keita’s sitters that you don’t find in Sander’s who show little of their personality.