Guy Tillim, Ntokozo (right) and his Brother Vusi Tshabalala at Ntokozo’s Place, Milton Court, Pritchard Street, Johannesburg, 2004, Ink-jet print on paper, © Guy Tillim, International Center of Photography. |
Contemporary African Photography, a Continuing Tradition of Vitality |
Guy Tillim, Al’s Tower, a block of flats on Harrow Road, Berea, overlooking the Ponte building, Johannesburg, 2004, Pigment print on cotton paper, 35.3 x 52.4 cm, © Guy Tillim, International Center of Photography.
Yto Barrada, Meriem – A spelling class at the Darna day centre for street children – Tangier, 1999 from the series A Life Full of Holes: The Strait Project, 1998-2004, C-print, 74 x 74 cm, © Yto Barrada, Courtesy of Galerie Polaris and the artist.
Mohamed Camara, Cactus de Noël 2: Quand je prendrai la place du Père Noël, tu verras. (When I take the place |
National Gallery Snap Judgments, shows 35 contemporary African artists and photographers with unique perspectives on their own continent. The exhibition reveals how artists use photography to respond artistically to the enormous changes taking place in African economic, social and cultural life. The artists also break from lingering stereotypical images of their cultures, histories and countries. The exhibition was organised by Okwui Enwezor, adjunct curator at ICP in New York. Over the last century, photography has proved a vital medium in African culture; however, appreciation of African photographers and their visual imagery is a recent phenomenon. Examining the role of visual images in African culture, the exhibition offers an insight into the rapidly changing social dynamics of the continent. The show includes over 180 works by 35 artists. The majority of the works were produced since 2000, many were commissioned for the exhibition. Snap Judgments presents photographs from all over the continent, from the Muslim North down to its southernmost tip. It reveals the vast changes now occurring in African economic, social and cultural life. In addition to revealing individual artistic responses to Africa, Snap Judgments also examines the ways in which its recent photographic art has moved beyond both African traditions and Western influences to explore new aesthetic territories. The show passes over the commercial portrait photography that has dominated the African scene in recent decades and focuses instead on Africa’s increasingly important documentary and fashion photography, as well as conceptual art. The exhibition highlights several themes. Artists like Zarina Bhimji (Uganda) and Zwelethu Mthethwa (South Africa), make the landscape a vehicle for understanding historical trauma or social alienation. Others focus on the rapid changes occurring in African cities, emphasising urban lifestyles and architectural developments. The human body is also a recurrent subject, sometimes addressed provocatively as in the work of Nigerian-born Oladélé Bamgboyé, who explores the shifting boundaries of identity, gender and sexuality. The history of the continent is likewise represented with many of the younger African artists reconstructing it by challenging or reinventing the narrative of the colonial past. Snap Judgments was organised by Nigerian-born adjunct curator Okwui Enwezor, now on the staff of the International Center of Photography in New York, where the exhibition was first seen in 2006. Enwezor was previously artistic director of Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany (2002) and worked as an independent curator on a number of exhibitions of African and other contemporary art and photography. The exhibition is accompanied by an English-language publication, Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography, containing an essay by Okwui Enwezor (published by ICP/Steidl Verlag).
Nontsikelelo "Lolo" Veleko, Thulani, 2004. |
Otobong Nkanga, Workmen in Pool 1, 2005, Dye coupler print, © Otobong Nkanga, Courtesy the artist. |
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Otobong Nkanga, Workmen in Pool 1, 2005, Dye coupler print, © Otobong Nkanga, Courtesy the artist. |