Revue de presse #40 – Juillet 2016

Sammy Baloji, “That is where, as you heard, the elephant danced the malinga. The place where they now grow flowers”, détail de l’exposition à la galerie Imane Farès, Paris, du 14 avril au 30 juillet 2016.
À retenir dans cette revue de presse du mois de juillet 2016 les coups de projecteur portés sur le continent africain aux Rencontres d’Arles (qui se terminent à la mi-septembre) et diverses initiatives qui assurent la pérennité d’oeuvres majeures pour l’histoire de la photographie et l’histoire tout court.
ACTUALITÉ DES PHOTOGRAPHES
RDC – Arts plastiques : Sammy Baloji transforme le cuivre en art, par Nicolas Michel, Jeune Afrique, le 27/07/16 ;
“D’anciennes photos au papier blessé montrant des dos, des ventres, des seins eux aussi scarifiés. Sur les côtés, des douilles d’obus servant de pots pour des plantes exotiques. « Tout part d’anciennes photos d’archives utilisées pour des classifications ethnographiques qui viennent des collections du Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale de Tervuren, explique Baloji. La colonisation a effacé toute cette culture qui transparaît à travers les scarifications. J’ai souhaité parler du crime des identités disparues, et le cuivre, qui était aussi exploité par les sociétés précoloniales, m’a paru idéal car il traverse le temps et relie toutes les périodes. »”
Portraits of the new faces of south african activism, par I-D, le 26/07/16 ;
“Last year Cape Town photographer Imraan Christian came to international attention when his images of South Africa’s #feesmustfall student protests spotlighted the continued ramifications of the apartheid on the country’s “born free” generation. In the months since the 23-year-old has become a prominent figure within the country’s new wave of political creatives who are bringing a sense of activism to every project, be it commercial or personal.”
Frédéric Noy ne veut pas «colporter de stéréotypes» via ses photographies, par Juliette Rengeval, RFI, le 24/07/16 ;
“Ce qui m’intéresse, c’est la faculté qu’a une minorité qui est baignée dans un océan de conformisme (….) de dire : “On existe malgré tout”, quand ils sont dans un univers où la loi principalement (…) les exclut et ne veut pas d’eux.”
The photographer looking for smiles in Maiduguri, BBC World, le 14/07/16 ;
Real-Life South African Liberation Stories: Santu Mofokeng, par , Lens – The New York Times, le 13/07/16 ;
“Now Steidl is publishing an 18-volume series over the coming year, “Santu Mofokeng Stories,” edited by Joshua Chuang and Mr. Mofokeng with the first book, “Train Church,” being shortlisted for a Rencontres d’Arles Book Award.
(…)
“‘Train Church” is a good example of the kind of oblique, intimate narratives that people in the townships are familiar with but that wasn’t the typical narrative disseminated to the outside world during those tough times,” Mr. Chuang said.”
La Centrafrique au fond de l’abîme, par Cyril Bensimon, M Le Magazine du Monde, le 12/07/16 ;
“William Daniels a découvert la Centrafrique en novembre 2013. Il y est retourné neuf fois. « Lors de mes cinq premiers voyages, je me suis consacré à la couverture de l’actualité. Mais ensuite, j’ai souhaité réaliser des images plus personnelles, me concentrer sur les causes et les circonstances du conflit avec une démarche plus proche du documentaire. La situation de ce pays demandait d’effectuer un travail en profondeur, d’autant que la plupart des éclairages ne se font qu’en période de forte actualité », explique-t-il.”
Santu Mofokeng receives Honorary Doctorate from Wits University, par
“Mofokeng specialised in landscapes, presenting them in relation to ownership, power, ecological effects and memory.”
À lire entre dans le magazine New African de juillet 2016, No. 563, The Hidden History of a Copper Colony: Sammy Baloji’s Images Are Scarred by Congo’s Painful Past, par Bomi Odufunade ;
https://issuu.com/icpubs/docs/na0716lr_au/82?e=6326645%2F36996002
PHOTOGRAPHIES HISTORIQUES
L’AOF : l’envers de la carte postale, par Jean-François Bat, Africa4, le 31/07/16 ;
“Adama Aly Pam : Cette ressource est révélatrice d’une histoire plurielle. Il s’agit aussi bien de l’histoire d’une rencontre entre l’Occident et l’Afrique, qu’une histoire partagée en ce sens qu’elle révèle une multitude d’instantanés qui fixe des moment historiques d’une société de l’oralité.”
Stars du studio à Bamako, par Claire Guillot, Le Monde, le 26/07/16 ;
Bénin: le fonds du photographe Cosme Dossa numérisé par l’EPA, par Delphine Bousquet, RFI, le 13/07/16 ;
“« Il faut que les gens sachent qu’ici, en Afrique, des institutions s’intéressent à ce patrimoine, veulent les préserver et les valoriser sur place », indique Franck Ogou, qui cite l’exemple du cinquantenaire de l’Indépendance en 2010 : les photos de l’exposition commémorative venaient de l’INA, en France !”
Kitty’s Studio: Rediscovering a South African Photographer’s Apartheid-Era Portraiture, par Siddhartha Mitter, Village Voice, le 13/07/16 ;
“But what they really constitute is a local record: of Pietermaritzburg folk being and performing themselves, in a factory town at apartheid’s zenith.
We’re fortunate to see them at all. Moodley died in 1987; his relatives eventually sold a pile of negatives to a South African museum, but the curator only wanted those featuring traditional Zulu outfits, famous for their beadwork. The rest was stashed in someone’s garage until 2011, when Steven Dubin, an arts administration professor at Columbia’s Teachers College, learned about it. He’s since archived 1,400 negatives, connected with Moodley’s family, and held exhibitions in Johannesburg and Pietermaritzburg.”
Rescued Portraits Offer Rare Glimpse Into Apartheid-Era Life, par Jennifer Pritheeva Samuel, National Geographic, sans date ;
“I have an ethical dilemma with this because these were private pictures, and these are now being made public. I’ve learned that the people who are most against me showing these are the people who are most removed from the experience. In other words, white liberals get upset about these photographs, but no Indians or Africans have gotten upset at all. In fact, they are thrilled to see their histories being shown. It’s [a dilemma that] can’t be easily settled, and it’s deeper because I’m a white man. I’m not a South African.”
COLLECTIONS PUBLIQUES EN FRANCE
The work of James Barnor for the collection of the musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Contemporary And, le 4/07/16 ;
“On Wednesday 29 June, the musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac confirmed the acquisition of a set of 69 photographs (vintage and modern prints) and documents by James Barnor, a Ghanaian photographer born in 1929. (…) It was the result of exceptional research in James Barnor’s personal archive by Christine Barthe, head of the Unité Patrimoniale des collections photographiques at the musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac.”
Information également relatée dans l’article James Barnor entre dans les collections du musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac publié dans Le Quotidien de l’art, le 20/07/16 ;
“69 photographies – des vintages et des tirages modernes –, ainsi que des documents, de James Barnor (…)”
Parmi les “Acquisitions et commandes Photographie et images 2016” par le CNAP figurent des oeuvres de Sammy Baloji, Louis Henderson, Vincent Meessen, Jo Ractliffe ;
EXPOSITIONS
‘Mad ambience’ of 1960s Mali depicted in Malick Sidibé’s first major UK solo show, par , The Art Newspaper, le 27/07/16 ;
“A selection of 45 photographs—some of them depicting nightlife in the Malian capital of Bamako, some shot in the studio—are to go on show at Somerset House on 6 October (until 15 January 2017) to coincide with 1:54 contemporary African art fair (until 9 October). The exhibition is being organised in collaboration with Sidibé’s Paris dealer, André Magnin.”
Information relatée également dans l’article Exhibition of Malick Sidibé photography to open in London, par Mark Brown, The Guardian, le 27/07/16 ;
“Touria El Glaoui, the director of 1:54, said she was thrilled to announce “such a strong programme”. She highlighted the Sidibé show, describing him as “such a pivotal figure in African art in the 1960s and an enduring influence on young photographers today”.”
From Three African Photographers, A Diverse Vision of Urban Life, par Ian Bourland, Aperture, le 20/07/16 ;
“Within Creative Africa, curator Peter Barberie has brought together a trio of veteran African-born photographers under the aegis of Three Photographers/Six Cities, which attempts to visualize a wide spectrum of quotidian life on the continent, but does so through small moments rather than wide angles.
(…) Ultimately, Three Photographers/Six Cities is a crucial proposition in its willingness to offer a more sustained and open-ended meditation on one dimension of contemporary landscapes, rather than issue generalizations, theoretical or otherwise. It also highlights the work of West African photographers who are far less known in America than their South African counterparts, such as Zanele Muholi or Pieter Hugo, who tend to have more gallery-level visibility here.”
Les portraits de Seydou Keïta. Corpus de représentations, par Gauthier Lesturgie, Contemporary And, le 11/07/16 ;
FESTIVALS
La Quinzaine de la photographie au Bénin : 7 artistes officiellement sélectionnés pour exposer, 24 heures au Bénin,
“La 3ème Edition de “La Quinzaine de la photographie au Bénin” se déroulera du 22 Septembre au 08 Octobre 2016 dans les villes de Cotonou, Abomey-Calavi et Porto-Novo. Au total 7 artistes photographes sont officiellement retenus pour exposer. (…) Faut-il le rappeler, les différents artistes postulants ont eu la lourde misssion de présenter une série de 10 oeuvres chacun sur le thème de cette année ‘‘L’ESCLAVAGE MODERNE’’.”
Ugandan Photographer Sarah Waiswa Wins Prestigious Recontres d’Arles 2016 Discovery Award, par Josephine Opar, Okay Africa, le 25/07/16 ;
Maravillas de Mali and Africa’s love affair with Cuban music in the swinging sixties, par Claude Grunitzky, True Africa, le 26/07/16 ;
“One of the highlights of ‘Swinging Bamako’ is the wall that displays rarely seen official photos of Modibo Keïta posing, right when the Cold War was simmering, with prominent Asian Communist leaders like Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-sung and Mao Zedong. Ultimately, many historians feel that Modibo, a direct descendent of the founders of the Mali Empire, was just a realist who sensed that young Africans could gain knowledge and emancipation by affirming their third-world identity and forging alliances with nations that understood that there could be a new vision for a united Africa.”
Photographie : les Rencontres d’Arles mettent l’Afrique à l’honneur, par Nicolas Michel, Jeune Afrique, le 21/07/16 ;
Photographie : rendez vous en Arles… chez Fatimata !, par Nicolas Michel, Jeune Afrique, le 6/07/16 ;
Les Rencontres d’Arles 2016 review – twin towers and sub-Saharan slums, par Sean O’Hagan, The Guardian, le 12/07/16 ;
“More rigorous and revealing is the provocatively titled Tear My Bra, in which Azu Nwagbogu, curator of the Lagos photo festival, illustrates the subtle ways in which Nollywood, the booming Nigerian film industry, has impacted on visual storytelling in Africa, in the work of photographers such as Omar Victor Diop and Karl Ohiri.
Kenyan-based Sarah Waiswa won the Discovery award for her series, Stranger in a Familiar Land, which looks at the persecution of albinos in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a dreamlike take on a harsh subject with a single female model posed against the bright skies and rubbish-strewn Kibera slums. A brave attempt to move outside a traditional documentary but one that, for me, seemed oddly over-staged.
A Arles, l’Afrique « déchire un soutien-gorge » et danse comme à Bamako, par Clarisse Fabre, Le Monde, le 7/07/16 ;
“(…) c’est à la sortie de la gare SNCF que commencent, géographiquement, les Rencontres de la photographie à Arles, avec une exposition intitulée « Africa Pop », contre-pied au photoreportage misérabiliste et marchepied pour la jeune création décalée, jusqu’au 25 septembre.”
MARCHÉ DE L’ART
How London Developed a Bullish Market for Contemporary African Art, par Rob Sharp, Artsy.net, le 26/07/16 ;
““It has been a gradual process, but some countries in Africa were doing well when I launched the gallery and I think people read the signs,” said Maria Varnava, owner and director of Tiwani Contemporary, which represents artists including Ethiopian painter Robel Temesgen and Nigerian photographer Andrew Esiebo. “What’s really interesting is both the development of discourse around art from the region, as well as the market,” Varnava noted. “On the African continent you have new biennials, not-for-profit and commercial galleries, a new museum of contemporary art in Cape Town, as well as new fairs in Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa. This will build a strong local market long-term, in terms of collectors and an art ecosystem, and that’s good news globally.” She said that while climbing auction prices were positive, they haven’t necessarily always reflected the primary market value of an artist’s work.”
VARIA
Vision & Justice Online: Renée Mussai in Conversation with Victor Peterson II, Aperture, non daté ;
“Historically, I think of W.E.B. Du Bois’s “American Negro” installation, presented at the 1900 Paris Exposition, one of the most significant photographic interventions. Du Bois was effectively the first black curator of photography. His project was driven by an undeniable humanist concern and an undying belief in the visual as an effective political tool to institute social change. Together with others who shared his mission, Du Bois strategically deployed 363 photographs to stage a claim for the humanity of the black subject. And, in that moment, he was perhaps also the first scholar-activist who turned to photography as a campaign tool presenting visual “evidence” en masse.
(…) One key aspect of our continuous curatorial responsibility lies in preserving the legacy of certain influential artists, such as the work of Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955-1989), a founding member and the first chair of Autograph ABP, or that of Maud Sulter (1960–2008), a pioneering curator, writer, and artist whose work we recently presented at Rivington Place, and at this year’s Rencontres d’Arles in France. Without sustained advocacy, these artists are invisible, their contributions erased, forgotten, which is, ironically, a prevalent theme in their work. Part of our mission is to inspire other institutions take notice, and consider these and other artists’ work in their collecting and exhibiting frameworks.”
History is contemporary, and is happening now, Contemporary And, le 19/07/16 ;
“Invisible Borders is an artistic remapping of ideas, geographies and images. Photographers, writers and filmmakers came together to explore new territories. This happened at a time when people were just recognising the potential of social media and the Internet across Africa. Right from day one we were blogging while travelling, sharing art with people on a day-to-day basis.”
LES ANNONCES DU MOIS
Bruno Boudjelal parmi les récipiendaires de la bourse AFAC avec un projet intitulé “Mapping of Massacres Sites in Algeria; the great massacres of 1997-1998”.
Campagne de financement : The Ttabo. If you are not in here…
The Ttabo: film and book. More stories from Kaddu Wasswa and his Archive
“The Ttabo / If you are not in here no one will know you are out there follows up on the publication of The Kaddu Wasswa Archive in 2010. This book presents, in photographs and documents, a story of three people meeting and getting to know each other. Embedded in this story you get to know a version of the life of one of the three people. It shows some of the challenges Kaddu Wasswa had to deal with in his life, and gives you a peep at the successes of his efforts through the attractive photographs made of the activities of his Youth Groups Club.”
En préparation du lancement de YaPhoto, l’Institut Français du Cameroun – Yaoundé accueillera un atelier/rencontre destiné à la création photographique camerounaise (19-25 juillet 2016).
YaPhoto, est une nouvelle plateforme indépendante basée à Yaounde. Initiée par Landry Mbassi (artiste et curateur, Yaoundé) conçue et développée en collaboration avec Christine Eyene (historienne de l’art et curatrice, Londres), ce projet propose de soutenir les métiers de l’image (photographie, art vidéo et nouveaux médias) à travers un réseau et une série d’activités, en vue d’accompagner la jeune création camerounaise tant localement qu’à l’international.”
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
fotota (8 août 2016). Revue de presse #40 – Juillet 2016. FOTOTA - Perspectives africaines en photographie. Consulté le 10 février 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/oti8
“Du 18 octobre 2016 au 8 janvier 2017, à Paris, le Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration exposera une partie de la collection agnès b., sous le commissariat de Sam Stourdzé, directeur des Rencontres d’Arles.”
Source : “Exposition : agnès b. l’Africaine”, Jeune Afrique, le 23/07/16
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/mag/342198/culture/exposition-agnes-b-lafricaine/