An ode to the pioneers of African photography

These photographers are above all portraitists, but drawn into a joyful movement of liberation, they have left their studios and travelled around the city reporting on the atmosphere of the nightlife. Since the 1950s, Jean Depara has criss-crossed the streets of Kinshasa, from bars to dance halls, to the sound of rumba, an Afro-Cuban dance. From 1961 onwards, Malick Sidibé followed the youth in the Bamako surboums to capture the twist, a dance that came from the United States via Paris. And it is no coincidence that in 2017, two posthumous exhibitions in Paris and Arles were called “Mali twist” and “Swinging Bamako”.

A photography capturing a liberated youth

The vogue for twist in Bamako can be seen as a surprise in a city that has been celebrating its Independence for a year now and which, by mimicry with the West, is indulging in a music whose musical structure breaks with African music and with jazz. This mimicry can be seen in the attitudes and costumes: men quickly adopt the European habit, followed a little later by women. The décor uses imported objects, from Solex to the Beetle. In his studio, Seydou Keita has European props: scooters, watches, pens.

In a context of political independence that can only be achieved with economic and cultural aspects, one can be surprised by this pro-Western fashion as students from Berkeley and the Latin Quarter look towards Che Guevara, Mao or Martin Luther King. It must be said that there is a double context: the African independence which frees youth from the Western colonial yoke, and at the same time, in this Western world, a phenomenon of liberation of youth which asserts itself as a socio-cultural category in its own right, which, nourished by the thought of Marcuse and the pill, exults in May 68. A movement of such great magnitude that plays with borders like… the twist!

These photographers assert themselves as artists by vocation, by public favour and by necessity. The use of argentic photograph, by economy, imposes them a single shot, often in daylight. It is therefore necessary to work on the framing, the light, the pose wherever you are, but with an arranged setting. By training, by instinct or by necessity, the portrait always imposes itself. The face turned a little to one side, the position of the hands and above all the gaze that must reveal the “image” . Seydou Keita explains that : the photographer is “a man-eater because he takes away his “dyaa” or his “double self”. Through these faces and attitudes, can we capture with these portraitists, at this time, the soul of this African youth doubly liberated by making the distinction between appearance and reality.

Presentation of some of the artists showcased

Among others, Philippe KOUDJINA AYI and Mory BAMBA will be presented. Philippe KOUDJINA AYI was born around 1940 in Togo, died in 2014 in Niamey (Niger). For 40 years, since the 1960s of Independence, Philippe Koudjina has been criss-crossing the capital of Niger from bars to nightclubs with his 6×6 camera to leave us today with the memory of this time of freedom and joy. He frequents the nightclubs of young Nigeriens who gather to have fun and dance to the sounds of Zairian rumba and trendy Western hits as well as the French military and parachute circles based in the country.

Mory BAMBA was born in 1949 in Sikasso, Mali, lives and works in Kadiolo. After being trained by his father, who was the first to open a modern studio in Sikasso after independence, Mory Bamba travels by moped through the villages around his home in 1968 to create portraits and relate the daily life of the inhabitants of the villages of Mali. He evokes the ethnic mix, cultural diversity and the cohesion of society.

Le Bal de Bamako

Fondation Blachère

Contemporary Art Exhibition

From 11th May to 26th September 2020

zi les Bourguignons, 382 Avenue des Argiles, 84400 Apt

France

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In collaboration with The Walther Collection, the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC) in Toronto present a major exhibition exploring African photographic portraiture through the perspectives of women, both as sitters and photographers. Guest curated by scholar Sandrine Colard, The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture features contemporary works by female artists alongside twentieth-century studio portraits and early colonial images and albums, exclusively from The Walther Collection’s holdings.

Throughout the history of photography, African women’s bodies have been repeatedly objectified and fetishized. Furthermore, the African female gaze is one of the most under-studied subjects in histories of visuality—a frequent assumption of powerlessness has caused researchers to overlook these women’s capacity to shape their own representations. On rare occasions when this viewpoint has been examined, women’s gazes are described as vital only to their own “limited” perspective. Drawing on the uniquely expansive range of images in The Walther Collection, The Way She Looks provides a timely historical overview of African female experience in photography and shifts the focus towards women’s gazes, highlighting female acts of looking that challenge the male-dominated narrative of the medium. With over 100 works by both female and male practitioners from across Africa, the exhibition emphasizes the multiple and nuanced ways women see and present themselves, both as photographic subjects and in positions behind the camera.

The second section features women’s portraits since the 1950s by notable West African photographers, such as Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta. From the middle of the twentieth century, African women became regular patrons of the portrait studios that were flourishing, particularly in cities. Desiring to be represented in front of the camera, women sitters styled themselves, carefully chose their outfits, commissioned the photographer, and performed during studio sessions.

The patriarchal imprint of male-owned studios was therefore frequently challenged by the self-fashioning agency of the women stepping in front of their lenses. At the same time, documentary photographers began to record the African female experience in a period of rapid social, cultural and political change as many nations prepared for and achieved independence. This was especially true in the decades surrounding the end of apartheid in South Africa, when numerous image-makers—white and black, but still predominantly male—captured self-aware subjects in moments of hardship, joy, resistance, and tenderness.

The final section highlights a number of significant African female and non-binary artists who have emerged since the 1990s, including Yto Barrada, Jodi Bieber, Zanele Muholi, Lebohang Kganye, Grace Ndiritu, Nontsikelolo “Lolo” Veleko, Sue Williamson, and Mimi Cherono Ng’ok. Exploring a wide array of subjects, from feminist, queer, and gender issues to history, kinship, migration, memory, and loss, many of the works made by these artists challenge conventional understandings of African female photographic representation. As the imaging of black female subjects continues to be a site of reductive and denigrating perceptions, and as a new wave of women’s voices rise to reclaim their fair share of humanity, these artists intervene upon some of our age’s most pressing conversations.

This exhibition is curated by Sandrine Colard, an art historian, writer, and curator based in New York and Brussels. A specialist of modern and contemporary African arts (PhD Columbia University), Colard is a professor at Rutgers University-Newark and has been appointed Artistic Director of the 6th Lubumbashi Biennale 2019, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Colard is currently at work on a book about the history of photography in the DRC (awarded 2019–2020 Ford Foundation Fellowship).

The Ryerson Image Centre’s (RIC) mission focuses on the research, teaching and exhibition of photography and related media. It is an active partner within the academic fabric of Ryerson University, the cultural network of greater Toronto, and the national and international artistic community. Its exhibition program addresses topics of social, cultural, aesthetic and historical concern from a variety of contemporary perspectives. Additionally, its Peter Higdon Research Centre conducts and facilitates inquiry into primary resource materials and offers workshops, lectures, symposia and publication programs. The RIC maintains a collection of photography spanning the medium’s history, as well as several artist and journalism archives—including the renowned Black Star Collection of twentieth century photo-reportage.

The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture

Photographs from The Walther Collection

Ryerson Image Centre’s (RIC)

September 11 – December 8, 2019

33 Gould Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5B 1W1 Canada

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