Revue de presse #24 – Mars 2015

ACTUALITÉ DES PHOTOGRAPHES

Paul Sika : Portrait d’un photo maker, par Pauline Deschryver et Stephane Madou, Terangaweb, s.d. ;

“A nos questions sur l’industrie de l’art en Afrique, l’artiste est sceptique. Contrairement à certains de ses confrères, il ne rejette pas cette pragmatique expression. Pour Paul, l’art est à un état embryonnaire en Afrique, surtout en raison d’un manque d’accessibilité : les canaux de distribution sont à développer et les propositions sont à adapter à la réalité africaine. En particulier, la vision des galeristes serait à remodeler sur le terreau local, et à la déraciner d’une éducation ou d’une projection européenne qui sonne faux ici. Le partage doit primer, pour que les gens puissent s’approprier l’art, qui reste malheureusement trop perçu comme n’étant « pas pour eux ».”

EXPOSITIONS

Maryam Jafri — Bétonsalon, par Guillaume Benoit, le 25/03/15 ;

“(…) Maryam Jafri présente une composition de photographies réunissant par thèmes des événements historiquement et géographiquement éloignés prenant place en pleine déclaration d’indépendance. Face au mur d’images, difficile de ne pas constater une certaine forme de mimétisme, une continuité dans un symbolisme de l’émancipation. Car il s’agit, dans un monde qui découvre la puissance de l’image et de la communication médiatique, d’illustrer, au sens le plus littéral du terme, le changement de pouvoir, la fin de longues tutelles étrangères.”

George Osodi and Hassan Hajjaj at the Newark Museum, par Chika Okeke-Agulu, The Huffington Post, le 9/03/15 ;

“Two weeks ago, the Newark Museum opened two photography exhibitions: George Osodi’s Royals and Regalia: Inside the Palaces of Nigeria’s Monarchs and Hassan Hajjaj: My Rock Stars. In terms of the sitters and the artists’ approach to photo-portraiture, the two shows could not be more different. Yet they have quite a bit in common, and it is this dynamic that makes the pairing done by the Museum’s Senior Curator Christa Clarke such a compelling, thoroughly engrossing exhibit.”

Exposition-photos au musée de national : Le regard atypique de Hamidou Diawara sur l’évolution de la mode au Mali, par Moussa Bolly, Maliweb, le 8/03/15 ;

“Comment les femmes du Soudan-Français s’habillaient-elles ? Comment le style vestimentaire des Maliennes a-t-il évolué depuis l’indépendance (1960) ? Qu’est-ce qui inspirait la mode des années 40 à nos jours ? Comment la vie communautaire était-elle organisée avant et à l’indépendance ? Quelle était l’importance des Biennales artistiques et culturelles dans la découverte des talents en herbe et leur impact sur l’unité nationale ?

(…)

Grand témoin de l’histoire contemporaine du Mali, Hamidou  a fouillé dans son immense trésor (archives) pour apporter un éclairage sur l’évolution de la mode malienne de 1946 aux premières années de l’indépendance acquise le 22 septembre 1960. (…) Grand professionnel, Hamidou a aussi promené son projecteur sur des grandes figures féminines de l’indépendance et de l’émancipation des peuples.”

FOIRES, FESTIVALS ET BIENNALES

Bamako

It’s time to apply for Pan-African art exhibition, par Stephen Kalimba, The New Times, le 11/03/15 ;

“The workshop was a follow up on a visit by Silva Bisi, the artistic director of Bamako Encounters, who visited Rwanda last December to encourage Rwandan artists to take part in the exhibition.

Talia Lieber, a research fellow at Fullbright, who assisted Silva during her visit, told The New Times, that: “Bisi wants to bring the region’s photography out of oblivion by connecting it to outside artistic networks, to help artists enhance their projects, and increase their chances to participate in the exhibition.””

Submissions Editing Workshop, Talia in Rwanda, le 9/03/15 ;

“This past Saturday, I organized a workshop with professional photographers and filmmakers to edit Rwandan artists’ photography and video submissions to the 10th Bamako Encounters exhibit. (…) Seventeen artists working in photography, video, and new media participated. Each artist met with a mentor at a different workstation. The mentors, who are professionals in photography or video and who are not eligible to apply to the biennale, gave feedback to the Rwandan artists on their projects, edited works, and will continue to meet with artists to help with submissions until the deadline.”

Afrique du Sud

Cape Town’s Newest Art Fair Re-Imagines Space and Place, par Nicola van Straaten, Another Africa, le 17/03/15 ;

“Publisher Art South Africa launches new fair for young and emerging African artists during Cape Town’s art week.”

GRID Cape Town Photography Biennial – until March 15, Africa in Words, le 11/03/15 ;

“GRID is an international photography biennial which is to be organized in several important upcoming creative cities in the world. GRID brings together formal country exhibitions and statements from the creative industry. Anticipating on a changing society which is centred on visual communication, GRID focuses on contemporary image culture worldwide to exchange visions and cultures. The biennial creates a platform for photographers, curators, creatives, educational projects and the public with the goal to stimulate an international dialogue.”

—

Venice Biennale artist list released, e-flux, le 5/03/15 ;

Highlights from the LagosPhoto Festival 2013 proudly sponsored by Etisala, mis en ligne et diffusé par le festival via FB le 3/03/15 ;

VENTES AUX ENCHÈRES

From giants to heavy metal: contemporary African art – in pictures, The Guardian, le 25/03/15 ;

“A major sale of African artworks in London tomorrow boasts big names old and new from across the continent, and reflects a growing appetite in the art market.”

OBJETS ET IMAGES

Object Lesson, par Teju Cole, The New York Times Magazine, le 17/03/15 ;

“Perhaps the kind of “object photography” made by Abell, Ilnitsky, Gordon, Peress and many others in conflict zones cannot ever effect the political change we hope for from highly dramatic images. (…) We look at them anyway, for the change that they bring about elsewhere: in the core of the sympathetic self. We look at them for the way they cooperate with the imagination, the way they contain what cannot otherwise be accommodated, and the way they grant us, to however modest a degree, some kind of solace.”

Images, Reflections, Objects, par Eria Nsubuga, Start – A Journal of Arts and Culture, le 11/03/15 ;

“I often look at the pictures that History in Progress and Andrea and Canon Rumanzi show as a serious innovative way to look critically at black history. We are also being invited to tell our side of the story. Andrea realizes that a story with one perspective is a story only half told. This brings me to the ‘Bridging Distances and Differences’ project that Andrea and Anke Coumans, a professor at the Hanzehogeschool, are running using internet, video and audio projection media.
Art is being used in this case as an initiator, process and the outcome (product) of processes. Human interaction is being fostered through photography based imagery and stories. This method is still relatively unheard of here in Uganda. Although we now have access to the internet, smart phones, etc, we have not begun looking at the new media as serious tool for expressing our ideas and ideals. It is different in the Netherlands, from what I observed.”

L’oeil des rescapées du génocide rwandais, par Cécile Leclerc, Africultures, le 4/03/15 ;

“Monter un atelier photographique avec dix femmes rwandaises, vingt ans après le génocide : tel était le projet d’Anaïs Pachabézian. Pendant cinq jours en 2014, la photographe a accompagné ces femmes à Gitarama pour qu’elles passent derrière l’objectif et transmettent ainsi un regard sur leur propre histoire. Le résultat est une installation sonore et visuelle qui plonge le spectateur dans l’univers de ces rescapées et montre la manière dont elles se reconstruisent après le génocide.

(…) Amélie qui visite l’exposition, sur la Péniche Anako (Paris 19e), en ce début février, est touchée : “Ces objets rythment le quotidien, comme cette calebasse ou ce thermos. Et je réalise que de tels objets font aussi partie du génocide. Ça change notre regard sur cette histoire”.”

ARCHIVES NUMÉRIQUES

Everyoung, James british Accra Archive (information diffusée par James Barnor sur FB le 21 mars 2015, avec la mention : “This is the first of its kind in JamesTown, British Accra! It will be at the service of All.”)

“An online digital photographic archive which will be open to all photographers, film makers, Videographers, Television Stations, Production Houses, visual communication specialists, organizations, corporations and individuals that may not necessarily be media specialists to store their images online . This internet Platform will host existing historical pictures of past photographers as well as facilitate the online sale of pictures taken by practicing photographers.”

Projet CLAREMONT HISTORIES : “Stories about Claremont, the area now known as Harfield Village. Our stories are our memories, and they make us laugh, make us cry. This site is a dedication to those who lived in and share wonderful memories of Claremont before the forced removals under the Group Areas Act. They’re not all happy memories, but we would like to share both the good times and the bad. So that we don’t forget – so that nobody forgets – about the colourful, beautiful, difficult and vibrant lives of the people of Claremont.”

CIRCULATIONS D’IMAGES (pour le pire…)

Vol et détournement de photographie, par Jean-Jacques Naudet, L’Oeil de la photographie, le 2/03/15 ;

“En éditorial cette semaine, nous avons décidé de publier ce message reçu d’un de nos lecteurs, Roberto Neumiller, et son hallucinante histoire de photo volée et détournée — ou comment une photographie réalisée au Sahel en 2006 se retrouve aujourd’hui sur des sites d’extrême droite pour dénoncer des arrivées massives de clandestins en France.”

REPRÉSENTATIONS DU CONTINENT ET DE SES HABITANTS

Le symbole d’un pays à genoux, propos de Fabio Bucciarelli recueillis par Hélène Rocco, 6Mois, le 20/03/15 ;

“(…) Je ne connais ni son nom, ni son âge, mais cette scène me reste gravée en mémoire. A genoux, sans visage, il semble porter le poids du monde sur ses épaules, l’atmosphère est lourde. Pour moi, cet enfant incarne le pays détruit.”

VARIA

Which Art History in Africa?, par Serubiri Moses, Africa is a Country, le 10/03/15 ;

“When asked what art critics I read to inform my own practice, I am dumbfounded by the fact that my own reading has consisted of white American and French theorists from the 1970s. This often follows with a doubtful look asking: what exactly do you know about Ugandan art?”

Exciting and dynamic, African art is the future, par Kevin D Dumouchelle, Financial Times, le 27/03/15 ;

“Contemporary art from the African continent is not “emerging”. Leaving the implications of that implied hierarchical geography aside for the moment, the artists and movements recognised and celebrated in the west today are the product of a long and still widely under-appreciated history.”

Former PIDE Headquarters In Maputo To Become Mozambique’s Colonial Resistance Museum, Club of Mozambique, le 20/03/15 ;

“The ‘Vila Algarve’, which was the Political Police headquarters in Mozambique until April 25 1974 and is currently a ruin, will be transformed into the Mozambican National Museum of Colonial Resistance.

The former headquarters of PIDE (International Police and State Security) in Maputo will be transformed into the National Resistance Colonial Museum, announced a source from the Ministry of Combatants of Mozambique, quoted by the daily ‘Notícias’.

(…)

Built in 1934, the ‘Vila Algarve’ was built by Jose Santos Rufino orders, prominent trader and photographic editor in Portuguese Lourenço Marques, currently Maputo.”

LES ANNONCES DU MOIS

Lancement de l’exposition en ligne Sailors and Daughters. Early photography and the Indian Ocean, un projet du Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (Connecting the Gems of the Indian Ocean: From Oman to East Africa), curaté par Erin Haney (assistée par Xavier Courouble) : “Sailors and Daughters reveals the expansive maritime societies of Zanzibar, the east African coast, and beyond. From the 1840s, cameras traced the international migrations of traders, sailors, sons, and daughters through Indian Ocean ports, continuing trade that dates back over five millennia. East African cities flourished as hubs of both land and sea trade routes, which extended to the central African interior, Horn of Africa, Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean islands, western India and the Far East.”

#KlaPhotoMarket is Uganda’s premier avenue for the exhibition and sale of contemporary photography as art, providing a context for the enjoyment, education, understanding and appraisal of the creative contemporary practice of photography. he inaugural exhibit on 31st March 2015 at Yasigi Beer Garden (5pm – 9pm) will feature 10 dynamic and passionate photographers, all showcasing 5 of their best collectable pieces. All photography on show will be elegantly framed and available for sale on the day at only UGX. 100,000. All proceeds are retained by the photographers in a bid to support and elevate their craft.

The Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg, in collaboration with the Market Photo Workshop, is organising three consecutive and related events – two training courses and a curriculum development meeting on photography training – that are taking place between 25.05. – 05.06.2015 in Johannesburg as part of the project Centers of Learning for Photography in Africa (CLPA).

The aim of Centers of Learning for Photography in Africa is to contribute to the professionalisation of photography on the African continent by forming a strong educational resource network. The network of independent, well-equipped and self-sustainable training structures will facilitate training initiatives’ access to tools and content relating to curriculum-development, teaching methods, infrastructure and equipment.

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