Within himself, an African photographer finds multitudes
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Saturday, October 5, 2024


Within himself, an African photographer finds multitudes
Samuel Fosso (born 1962, Kumba, Cameroon; active Bangui, Central African Republic and Paris, France), 70’s Lifestyle, 1975–78, printed 2022. Gelatin silver print; 46.7 × 46.7 cm. Princeton University Art Museum. Museum purchase, Carl Otto von Kienbusch Jr. Memorial Collection Fund. © Samuel Fosso. Courtesy the artist, and Jean Marc Patras, Paris.

by Arthur Lubow



NEW YORK, NY.- In the aftermath of the civil war in Nigeria that devastated his Igbo community, Samuel Fosso was sent in 1972 to live with an uncle who was a shoemaker in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. Dissatisfied with cobbling, Fosso apprenticed with an Igbo photographer down the street. Three years after his arrival, he opened his own portrait studio. He was 13.

At the end of the workday, he would finish off a roll of black-and-white film with self-portraits for his grandmother back home, to demonstrate that despite having been a sickly child, he was in robust health. Showing off in front of the painted backdrops he used for his clients, he would put on a tank top and briefs, oversized sunglasses, a jiujitsu costume or fashionably fringed white pants — adopting the attire and attitudes of African and African American pop stars.

So began a lifelong project of self-portrait impersonations that has established Fosso, 60, as one of Africa’s leading photographers. His first solo American museum exhibition, “Samuel Fosso: Affirmative Acts,” organized by art historian and professor Chika Okeke-Agulu at the Princeton University Art Museum, draws heavily from the holdings of collector Artur Walther and offers a compact presentation of Fosso’s work.

He was catapulted from a career as a studio photographer in a small African city to worldwide recognition in 1994, when his self-portraits won an award in the first photography biennial in Bamako, Mali, where he was compared to Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta, two acclaimed portrait artists from Bamako.

“I did not know I was making art photography,” he told curator Okwui Enwezor in Aperture. “What I did know was that I was transforming myself into what I wanted to become. I was living out a series of ideas about myself.”

In 1997, a commission in Paris by Tati, a discount-clothing department store, inspired him to step up his ambition. To distinguish himself from Sidibé and Keïta, he worked in color, staging self-portraits in which he fully took on the roles of fictional characters: a businessman, a bourgeois woman, a rocker. In one, posing as “the liberated American woman of the 70s,” he made up his face with lipstick and eyeliner, painted his fingernails blue, and donned a brightly patterned patchwork coat, bead necklaces, a straw hat and purple stiletto heels, carrying it off with a huge dollop of feminine self-assurance.

Even more bravura is his self-presentation as “the chief who sold Africa to the colonists.” Adopting the mock-tribal costume of contemporary African dictators like Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo but in cheap ersatz versions (faux leopard skins, tourist souvenir gold jewelry, a bangle on his calf and a toe ring), Fosso, clutching a bunch of sunflowers, peers out inscrutably behind white designer shades. In a room that is covered on the floor and walls with boldly patterned fabrics, his bare feet rest on a Kuba cloth, next to a pair of red loafers that he is proudly displaying as proof of his prosperity.

In subsequent series, photographing both in color and in black and white, Fosso portrayed himself in “African Spirits” (2008) as eminent Black men (Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, Haile Selassie) and in the series “ALLONZENFANS” (2013) as African soldiers in a colonial army. For “Black Pope” (2017), he dressed himself in authentic papal regalia that he obtained from Gammarelli, the pope’s official tailor in Rome. He was highlighting the fact that notwithstanding the large number of Roman Catholics in Africa (Fosso is Catholic himself), there has never been a Black pope.




Fosso’s assumption of different identities is often compared to the work of Cindy Sherman, although she did not commence her breakthrough “Film Stills” until 1977, two years after he began his self-portraiture. “Rock Star (Character Appropriation,” made by Argentine artist David Lamelas, who photographed himself as a guitarist in 1974, comes closer to the pictures that Fosso was making when he started. In Bangui, however, he was unaware of contemporary Western artists.

Within himself he finds multitudes.

His most direct treatment of the aspects of his personality was inspired by a disaster. In 2014, while he was in Paris, his studio in Bangui was looted and destroyed during civil strife. Depressed and shaken, he stayed in Paris, where in 2015 he began making “SIXSIXSIX,” a sequence of 666 Polaroid self-portraits. Eschewing costumes and makeup, he recorded different expressions on his unadorned face, explaining that he was “exorcising my own resentment in the face of this situation.” Because he was pondering why people commit evil acts, he chose the “number of the beast” that appears in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament and is associated with the Antichrist.

To make sure that his face would be positioned the same way in each photo, he obtained a chair used by the police to make mug shots. The unique series of prints is in the collection of the Musée du Quai Branly — Jacques Chirac, but in this exhibition, the photos are displayed in sequence in a single-channel video installation that is placed at the end of the small show, near a selection of portraits of local citizens that Fosso made in his studio when he was beginning his career.

Side by side, you see the two forces that drive his art: the well-established studio practice of West Africa and a healthy dose of self-regard.



‘Samuel Fosso: Affirmative Acts’

Through Jan. 29, Princeton University Art Museum, Art on Hulfish, 11 Hulfish St., Princeton, New Jersey. artmuseum.princeton.edu

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

January 7, 2023

Inside South Korea's art-mad capital

U.S. officials repatriate a looted relic to the Palestinian authority

At Columbia's $600 million business school, time to rethink capitalism

Al Capone's 'Scarface' inmate record cards, medical records among gangsters, outlaws & lawmen memorabilia up for auction

David Zwirner opens an exhibition of works by Yun Hyong-keun

Christie's to present a non-selling exhibition of works by six talented artists

George Adams Gallery unveils Arnaldo Roche-Rabell survey

Revelatory new insights unveiled in new Vermeer biography

Activist who removed Banksy mural from Kyiv suburb could face prison, police say

Phillips' celebrates 10th anniversary of the Editions Department in London with auctions

A Black composer's legacy flourishes 500 years after his birth

Farewell and new beginning: Renate Flagmeier retires and Florentine Nadolni takes over

V&A to open Phase Two of the museum's Photography Centre in May 2023

Gabriel Madan opens exhibition "Severance" at François Ghebaly

Henry Grossman, photographer of celebrities and Beatles, dies at 86

When the writing demands talent and discretion, call the ghostwriter

Within himself, an African photographer finds multitudes

British comedy 'Peter Pan Goes Wrong' plans spring Broadway bow

Exhibition brings together an impressive corpus of Lebbeus Woods' drawings

Revisiting a composer's psychedelic Lewis Carroll music

First CGC-graded video games hit the block in Heritage's January event

For critics and fans, nearly 29 years of 'Stomp' memories

How to Grow Hair Faster with Shampoo: Tips from Tayloani

BL BATTERIES ARE THE NEW DEMAND IN THE HOUSES

A Guide to Buying Labradorite Gemstone Beads

The beautiful art of tennis

Top 10 Services To Buy Youtube Views

What are the Side Effects of Magnesium Glycinate?

How to Access Zlibrary: The Most Popular Online Library for Students

Exploring the Most Famous Paintings of All Time

Is the act of gambling itself a form of artistic expression?

Kapil Dev makes a bold statement for Suryakumar Yadav




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful