Salon designed by Hassan Hajjaj ash entrance including his photographic work.

Labyrinth by Youssef Limoud, and the upside hanging house by Pascale Marthine Tayou

Photographic installation Ouakam Fractals by Simon Baloji

Safaa Mazirh, Sans titre, Maroc

Safaa Mazirh

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Joel Andrianomearisoa,

Mimi Cherono Ng’ok

William Kentridge, a wonderful installation/film.

Outside in the park some of the photographs were displayed for all to see.

Aida Mulaneh,

Mario Macilau.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Lagos, Nigeria to attend the Lagos Photo Festival. I had been to Bamako several times, had found the quality pretty consistent but the event felt quite formal and isolated from mainstream Bamako. So this year I decided to go and check out the Lagos Photo Festival.

I had heard lots of good things about Azu Nwagbogu, the founder and director of the African Artists’ Foundation and the director of Lagos Photo and I had met Cristina De Middel, the curator of the Festival’s sixth edition Designing Futures. Her background is photojournalism but she moved to art photography with her Afronauts series, a fantastic project full of imagination. Both of them and the small organizational team worked around the clock to put this together.

My preconceptions of Lagos were shaped in part by my readings of Nigerian novels, the press and by a few friends who had visited Lagos. In short I was a bit apprehensive when I landed at the airport, which was in a terrible state of disrepair and did nothing to make me feel at ease. However, when I arrived at the Eko hotel on Victoria Island and met up with the Lagos Festival team and other attendees (mostly photographers and photography editors) I quickly relaxed. I was assured that getting around was not a problem beyond the issue of terrible traffic; Uber was alive and doing well in Lagos and anyway I was to tag along with all them whenever I wished. Their enthusiasm for the place was uplifting and I was getting back in touch with my adventurous spirit!

I was mysteriously upgraded to the side building and checked into my room, which had a great view of the Kuramo Lagoon. I could see in the distance a long line of tankers waiting to unload their gasoil. Nigeria while being rich in oil reserves does not refine therefore needs to import gasoline. Closer to the hotel new constructions sites were sprouting along a recently created sandbank. Indeed the demand for new luxury housing here is such that land is being reclaimed from the sea. As I was driven around by delightful Alex the following day I could see a helter kilter mix of old crumbling buildings, new construction sites and abandoned ones because of a lack of funds mid project.

At the hotel the day of the opening of the Lagos Festival there was quite a buzz. At first I thought it was for the art show since it was to take place at the hotel but the level of armed men, preparations (rugs rolled out) and dignitaries seemed a bit excessive. In fact the mayor of Lagos was celebrating his 80^th birthday and was expecting 3000 guests through out the afternoon and evening! It was quite fun and a treat to watch the women and men arriving all decked up in their sartorial traditional elegance. Walking through the wall of security men was a bit unnerving but after all these years in Africa I could handle it.

The Festival opened that night with the first exhibition of the Festival. In contrast to Bamako Biennale this festival includes a mix of local and international photographers with a common theme: Africa. The idea behind the festival is to encourage a discourse about photography in Africa through exhibitions and workshops while engaging the broader public from Lagos by having a good many outdoor exhibitions in public spaces.

I liked this focus on the local community, this commitment to introducing and expanding the role of photography locally while aiming to encourage quality work. With little governmental support it achieves a lot in an African way. By that I mean that there were a few mishaps in the beginning but we all took them in stride and kept our sense humor.

This year’s focus was on constructed realities with the photographer’s imagination as the main driver . In other words the photographer instead turns to fictional narratives to express his view of the world instead of reporting on events or documenting”reality” directly. The approach as a result was more conceptual. The results were mixed but I think it is an area to keep pushing.

I attended a couple of the panels where some of the photographers talked about their work and witnessed curator Simon Njami challenge the photographers by reminding them that they are photographers first and story tellers second. There was a tendency from the artists to talk little about the making of the photograph and more about the underlying story which is something I have witnessed all too often in contemporary African (though not exclusively) art. A worthy cause does not automatically make for good art!

I was there with the Paris photography editor of the New York Times and her sister, the founder of an artist residency in New York and we all exchanged ideas with the photographers about their work. Part inquiry, part critique, it was a valuable exchange for all it seems.

The opening was well attended mostly by a young local community, which was great to see!

Here are some of the works that were on display.

Pantsula by Chris Saunders from South Africa. This series sets out to document this South African predominant township subculture. It is a mindset and lifestyle and is expressed through language, music, dress code and a narrative dance form.

Unomgcana by Nobukho Nqaba from South Africa. Those plastic mesh bags have become a global symbol of migration across borders but also within countries. Though overwhelmed by these bags she keeps her poise! Amazing.

Prophecy by Belgian-Beninese Fabrice Monteiro, which addresses the terrible destruction of our environment. His work has been shown in many places but what I liked here was the inclusion of  a video on his process, which was fascinating. We see the costumes being made, the model on stilts putting it on and we witness the dealings with the local community where the scenes get shot, and who are not always welcoming.

My Lagos by Robin Hammond from New Zealand. These are stills from a multivideo project for National Geographic. Hammond walked the streets of Lagos and gives a glimpse of the diversity of characters and life in Lagos.

Awoulaba by Joana Choumali from Cote d’Ivoire where she explores the complex notion of femininity, beauty and body image in contemporary African society. Display mannequins are increasingly customized to reflect a local aesthetic and body form.

This particular series inspired us to pose for our own version of the subject…

We were on our way to the Chinese Market the next day – it took for ever as the van was going 10 miles per hour – and arrived to find out it was closed! So always ready to improvise the photographers in the group started to take snapshots of the place and we, the non professionals, became a bit goofy: this is the result!

From there we went to the POPCAP’15’s (the Piclet.org prize for African contemporary African photography) installation at the Yuba university which was fantastic. Hung outdoors in the midst of the university it was a dramatic installation. Students were milling around curious as to what was going on. I got to know a bit more about PopCap and they are doing a superb job. They got about 700 submissions from 58 countries. After a selection process the frontrunners are reviewed by a panel of “judges”, a group of curators, publishers, artists, and directors of galleries of important photography organizations. The finalists and their work becomes the subject of an exhibition that tours Africa and beyond.

Interior Landscapes by Filipe Branquinho from Mozambique.

Jua Kali by Tahir Carl Karmali from Kenya

Ultramar (Empire Travel Club) by Romaric Tisserand from France. This was pretty strong work and disturbing. The artist found 6 rolls of negatives buried in the ground in Lisbon of portraits of young Africans and soldiers from another time. He appropriates the images, merges past and present, and reframes history.

An exhibition at the Omeka gallery showed a selection from the New York Times ‘Lens’ blog curated by Whitney Richardson, producer of the New York Times Lens blog. Check out the photographers work, most of them are photojournalists and take you to places you have never been.

Inserted in this exhibition ( why? nobody knows but that did not worry anyone) was the work of James Ostrer. Take a close look it is all made of sweets and cream pastry! Amazing and James was super cool.

The last day I stopped at the Alara store, which was designed by David Adjaye and caters to the African woman who likes color, drama, and adornment says owner Reni Folawiyo.

A last stop at the African Artists’ Foundation where we witnessed a photography class.

It took more almost three hours to get to the airport. It can take as long as four actually on a bad day, which is everyday. On a very good day it takes 45 minutes!

Once I got home I realized I had left too soon as many more exhibitions, some in public spaces, opened after my departure. Some had been scheduled to open earlier but hadn’t. It is a good thing to remember that one often needs time when in Africa. Being in a rush does not pay off.

Finally I had a nice chat with a local handsome businessman who wanted to switch from the oil business to a consumer product base project. I asked him if he bought art to hang on his walls. His response was “ it is too expensive” to which I said that photography could be a good place to start but obviously only if the dealers don’t price out the middleclass person on the African continent!

This is what I came home with!

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Sometimes things work out well. I was long overdue for a visit to a dear friend in Charleston and there was a large exhibition of Contemporary African art at the SCAD in Savannah. So I found myself touring the old quarters of Savannah and Charleston, places of old privilege wholly supported at the time by the slave trade and pondering the work of African artists exploring Dante’s themes of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven.

The exhibition called The Divine Comedy had been curated by the writer and art critic Simon Njami and was traveling from Germany where it was shown at the Museum Für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt. Including original commissions and renowned works of art by approximately 40 of the most dynamic contemporary artists from 19 African nations and the diaspora it was to stay in Savannah for four months and then travel to Washington D.C. Since exhibitions of African artists are hard to come by in the United States I was thrilled that two US cities were included in the tour. I had bought the thick catalogue prior to the visit and had attempted to read the essays by Simon Njami and others to understand how Dante Alghieri’s Divine Comedy related to the works selected. The premise of the exhibition was that Dante’s visions are applicable to many cultures and religions. In fact, the catalogue failed to elucidate the connection. A selection of very erudite essays left me feeling confused as to the artists’ thinking and process as they responded to Dante’s work. I could not understand the necessity to validate the work of African artists by showing their ability to relate to a great work of Western literature from the 14^th Century. The premise seemed an artificial construct.

However, I liked the exhibition very much. The works were at times provocative, thoughtful, beautiful, relevant, and poignant. While there was no wall text there were students available to answer any question we had which allowed for a livelier visit and also a more direct experience. I was there with my friend who knew nothing about art coming from Africa and was very eager.

The exhibition was organized according a reversal of the order of the three states laid out in Dante’s Divine Comedy. It started with Heaven moved on to Purgatory and ended up with Hell. I must confess I soon abandoned any desire to make sense why certain pieces were in a section. I just let myself enjoy the process of discovery. I did feel a sense of elation as I walked into the foyer with Ndary Lo’s flying metal figures floating above our heads and approached Abdoulaye Konate’s wall hangings made of textiles, which exuded positive energy. Graceful dancing cutout figures anchored on a deep blue or red carpet-like ground conveyed a sense of joy, grace, and even intimacy.

Jellel Gasteli’s photographs of the desert brought me abruptly down to earth. Here the only evidence of human life were the traces left behind by man, like the print of a boot left on the sand, or the battered road signs. What one was left to see was the vastness of the desert yet seen so intimately that the love of the artist for it was palpable. While absent, man’s presence was intimately felt. Gasteli lives in Tunisia and the desert has been a fixture in his life. Paradise? Perhaps. Make sure you have water though!

I spend a lot of time gazing and walking around Jane Alexander’s tableau “Frontier With Church.” Set in a darkened chamber, what seemed to be a procession was at once intensely disturbing and captivating. There was something ritualistic, almost pagan to the scene. Hybrid creatures, humanimals – hyperrealist human bodies with animal heads – were pulling stacked on top of one another, a large crate wrapped in plastic, a luxurious trunk, and a black and white lamb while other creatures followed the convoy looking out to the crowds.

I could not figure out what this sheep was doing on top of the trunk but it brought up memories of images of religious pagan or Christian rituals such as the Golden Ram or the Sacrificial lamb. A Christian religious image glued on the side of the trunk confirmed I was on the right track.

Furthermore, three standing alone creatures were dressed in priestly garb with embroidered crosses and were possibly proselytizing. Every detail seemed significant though what one was meant to read from it was not always evident. Further research helped elucidate the meaning of the tableau. While the artist is making a direct reference to the procession encountered by Dante and Matilda at the Summit of Mount Purgatory she is highlighting the connection to proselytizism, migration and trade. Jane Alexander who is South African and works and teaches in Cape Town is unusual as she rarely sells her work and prefers to not explain her installations leaving the viewer work things out which is just what we were doing.

The Divine Comedy and its three states with its Christian undertones inspired further reflections on the role of religion. Zoulikha Bouabdellah installation “Silence” juxtaposed the two worlds of the sacred and the profane and paid tribute to those women who are not afraid to assert themselves despite the restrictions dictated by their faith. A series of identical prayer mats were cut out in the middle creating a space where golden shoes were positioned. The grid like effect created by the serial arrangements of the mats conveyed to me Islam’s rigid framework while the golden pumps evoked the fantasies of Westernization.

Life has a strange way of testing us. Recently this installation was included in an exhibition in Clichy, a close suburb of Paris. The artist and the curator chose to remove it after the Charlie Hebdo killings. It appears that the “mairie” had been warned by the local Muslim community that that there was a risk of violence. Feeling that the piece would not lead to the kind of dialogue that she wished to foster and getting no support from the local mayor Zoulikha Bouabdellah withdrew the piece although she felt strongly that there was nothing blasphemous about the work. By the way this work was produced in 2007/2008 and has been seen many times in Europe. I can’t help feeling deeply worried when I see the gradual erosion of civil rights as a result of threats of violence. This did not hit the front page of the papers but it is deeply concerning.

Looking back I realized how many of the works that struck me were done by women artists. Their work felt strongly convincing and aesthetically appealing. Their message was conveyed at times with the simplest of means.

Myriam Mihindou’s compelling and disturbing video “The Dress Flew Off” offered a poignant and poetic window into the artist’s torment. It was fantastic! The video zeros in on the artist’s legs and I found myself watching with increasing emotion as her hands struggled with her sheer skin-colored tights – a metaphor for her skin and /or social self. She pulls, stretches, tears the tights, covering and uncovering her calves while speaking of her body, skin, and pain. It is as if she is molting and the viewer becomes the witness of the birth of her “second skin.” Watching her struggle with being a woman of mixed race restricted by the taboos of race became a visceral experience. The simplicity of the performance and of the choice of elements and the power of expression was what impressed me so much.

The photographic work of Kiluaniji Kia Henda was very seductive and I found myself pondering my reaction. Hinda creates an unsettling and provocative visual and political relationship between the naked shape of a black man and the rich brown architectural details of an interior setting dating back to the 18/19th century. In one instance the body lies on the table as an anonymous shape.

It is just another unidentified object as all the chairs and tables carefully placed in the room. In another photograph the man is naked and sits between two scantily clad caryatids that are supporting the mantel. Here the artist links the economic fortunes of old Portugal to the exploitation of Africa and in particular to the slave trade. Absorbed with the aesthetic experience it took me awhile to realize that the artist was purposefully objectifying the black body to illustrate his point. Through fiction and careful staging of the photographs Hinda points to the historical and contemporary fraught presence of Africa in Europe while highlighting the artificiality of historical truth.

Nandipha Mntambo’s cowhide sculptures had plenty of breathing room, while Nicholas Hlobo ‘s gargantuan sprawling sculpture seemed a little squeezed in the long back gallery.

Tucked away behind Joel Andrianomearisoa’s installation of hinged vanity mirrors I was pleased to finally see Aida Muluneh haunting photographs. However they deserved better exposure. Beautifully composed, uncompromising, and enigmatic, I had a sense that what was being referenced here was dire and deeply personal. Muluneh, an Ethiopian photojournalist by training, forgoes simply documenting victimization and misery (Hell). Instead, through a carefully constructed, stylized and contemporary image integrating tradition and contemporary aesthetics she chooses to point to the burden of a painful history while not eschewing all responsibility.

Muluneh describes her creative thinking while making this photographic series:

“I painted her body white because for me, living in this city that we call Adis Ababa, we don’t need to fantasize about going to the Inferno – I have seen and experienced things that really make me question humanity. I have realized that in order to get ahead here, many people wear masks in order to protect their future. But while doing this, the reality is that I have seen the various atrocities and the great length that many will go to in order to maintain their success. So with that in mind, for me the red hands symbolize the guilt associated with the thirst for upward mobility. The cloth wrapped around Salem’s body is specifically from the southern region of Ethiopia, which has endured centuries of oppression, slavery, and so forth. For the background colour, I chose the off-grey because it reminds me of a dirty snow; this reminds me of my childhood of growing up in Canada, in the midst of the bitter cold, and also the challenges that I faced being an African immigrant in an all-white community.”

This exhibition gathered works that for the most part felt deeply relevant to our times while being wonderfully creative and personal. It will be shown at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington DC starting April 8.