Samuel Fosso

Born in Kumba in Cameroon in 1962, Samuel Fosso fled Nigeria and the Biafra War, and sought refuge in Bangui in the Central African Republic. He opened his own commercial photography studio there at the age of 13.

Alongside his portrait work Fosso began a series of selfportraits, a mode of representation he would never abandon. Staging his personal identity, his work gradually took on a universal social and political dimension, as in his celebrated series “TATI” (1997) and “African Spirits” (2008). Fosso’s work is held in collections such as the Tate, London; the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; the Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.