Revue de presse #55 – Novembre 2017

Novembre 2017 : ouverture du MuPho de Saint-Louis, YaPhoto à Yaoundé, LagosPhoto, la biennale d’art contemporain de Lagos… D’autres articles à découvrir dans cette revue : sur Ernest Cole, l’Archive of Malian Photography, la rétrospective de Malick Sidibé à la Fondation Cartier (Paris), 22 ans après une première exposition dans le même lieu qui avait lancé son oeuvre. On remarque au passage que la lecture sur son travail n’a pas changé depuis les débuts : il y est toujours question de joie, de musique, de danse, de mode et de jeunesse insouciante, à contre-courant des inquiétudes actuelles d’une jeunesse ouest-africaine qui se soulève contre les disparités grandissantes entre le Nord et le Sud. Quel-s message-s veut-on faire passer en continuant de promouvoir cette vision nostalgique figée de l’Afrique des indépendances ? Nous tenions aussi à souligner deux disparitions d’autant plus douloureuses que prématurées : deux photographes, actifs et généreux au sein de leurs communautés respectives, Peter McKenzie (disparu le mois dernier) et Kiripi Katembo (disparu en août 2015) dont on célébrait la mémoire à Kinshasa le 20 novembre dernier.

EN SOUVENIR DE PETER MCKENZIE (1955-2017)

Making photos, forging connections, par Niren Tolsi, Mail & Guardian, le 20/10/17 ;

“Photographer Cedric Nunn says seeing McKenzie’s student portfolio was “catalytic for me to realise that I could be a photographer”. Nunn was working in a sugar factory when he met McKenzie, who was a bassist in the band Staple Diet, which also included Steve Dyer.

“I had this epiphany when I saw his work,” said Nunn. “The social justice issues that were conveyed so powerfully in his work made me realise that this was a medium to articulate my own sense of this world.” He said McKenzie “gave me the courage to hand in my resignation letter”, and the duo went on a three-month road trip through Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

(…)

“Peter was one of those documentary photographers whose work was sensitive to, and created a new narrative about, everyday South Africa. This was predicated on people’s dignity and challenged the mainstream tropes that white … society had entrenched in their representation of black communities,” says Badsha.”

ET DE KIRIPI KATEMBO (1979-2015)

Kinshasa se souvient de Kiripi, remarquable poète-photographe mort en 2015 à l’âge de 36 ans, Actualité CD, le 21/11/17;

“En 2013, c’est Kiripi qui signe l’affiche du Festival d’Avignon.  En 2014, c’est lui qui crée la biennale d’art contemporain Yango, qui regroupe une trentaine d’artistes à Kinshasa pour sa première édition. On le retrouve encore dans le projet du célèbre Viva Riva de Djo Munga, assistant réalisateur de Rebelle de Kim Nguyen. Kiripi est également partie prenante dans l’immense film Atalaku de Dieudo Hamadi.”

ACTUALITÉS DES PHOTOGRAPHES

Travel Diary: Delphine Diallo Captures a Timeless Way of Living in Senegal, Okay Africa, le 17/11/17;

In Paris: Nothing’s In Vain in Senegal for Emmanuelle Andrianjafy, par Diane Smyth, British Journal of Photography, le 10/11/17;

Frank Kokoroko’s Photographs Focus On Millennial Culture In West Africa, par Damilola Animashaun, Konbini, le 6/11/17;

There is little I can say about Canon that he would agree with, par Alex L. Rogerson, Start Journal of Arts & Culture, le 5/11/17;

“Canon [Rumanzi] should be described as an artist before a photographer. From both his art and being in his company it is undeniable that he is one of the most uncompromising people I have ever met. Attempting to present Canon has proven to be the most challenging part of a longer study on Kampala’s urban photographers and artists and I feel that it is necessary to disclaim the highly subjective nature of my attempts to do so.”

Jacques Nkinzingabo’s Rwanda has a million solutions, par Alex Jackson, British Journal of Photography, le 2/11/17;

PHOTOGRAPHIE HISTORIQUE

Photographer Ernest Cole: Of bondage and freedom – Discovery of trove of negatives a game changer, par Ivor Powell, Daily Maverick, le 30/11/17;

“(…) now a whopping 60,000 negatives have been found in a bank vault in Sweden, 14,000 of them from Coles South African years and a startling 46,000 from the photographer’s unhappy exile mainly in the USA. Ivor Powell looks at some of the ways the discovery feeds into our understanding of an extraordinary and enigmatic figure.”

Episode 114: Digital Archive of Malian Photography, African Online Digital Library, (31’31), le 2/11/17;

“Youssouf Sakaly and Malick Sitou discuss the Archive of Malian Photography, a collaborative Malian-US project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the British Library, that provides free access to preserved and digitized collections of five important photographers in Mali. The interview considers ethical questions, family and community memory, conservation and dissemination of endangered materials, and changing media technology. With guest host Dr. Candace Keller (listen to Episode 37 for more about her research on Mali’s “Visual Griots.”) Episode 114: Digital Archive of Malian Photography, African Online Digital Library.”

The Colonizer’s Archive is a Crooked Finger: A Photo Essay, par Emmanuel Iduma, Catapult, le 2/11/17;

“Colonial photography perpetually assaulted what became the Nigerian body.”

EXPOSITIONS

MALI TWIST – Malick Sidibé à la fondation Cartier, Réalisation : Aurore Gorlier, Art News -MuseumTV, le 27/11/17;

Remembering the Playful, Hopeful, Pictures of Malick Sidibé, par Laurie Taylor, Frieze, le 15/11/17;

Malick Sidibé’s Work Reveals a Hidden Africa: It Loves to Party, par Andrew Dickson, The New York Times, le 10/11/17;

Intéressant de noter que l’auteur de cet article a changé le premier titre choisi (littéralement “une Afrique cachée” qui “aime faire la fête”) pour “Malick Sidibé’s Mali: Scenes of a Rollicking Night Life”, paru finalement dans la version papier on November 27, 2017, on Page C6 of the New York edition with the headline: “Chronicling Mali’s Rollicking Night Life”.

Mali twist de Fatoumata Diabaté : Malick Sidibé a une digne héritière, par Hadejah S. Maïga, Journal du Mali, le 2/11/17;

Malick Sidibé, entre tradition et modernité, par Marc Lenot, Lunettes rouges, le 1/11/17;

“Juste noter au passage que cette fameuse et superbe photographie d’un frère apprenant à sa sœur à danser est titrée « Nuit de Noël ». Elle a été prise, non pas un 24 décembre, mais le 25 février 1963. Cherchez l’erreur. Je ne sais qui l’a ainsi rebaptisée, mais nous avons là un exemple parfait d’une vision postcoloniale imposant ses codes : le 25 février 1963 était non pas, comme vous le lirez souvent, le dernier jour avant le Ramadan, mais au contraire le 1er jour du mois suivant, le 1er Shawwai 1382, plus connu sous le nom d’Aïd el Fitr. Intéressant, non ?”

Vicente Paredes’ hard-hitting Pony Congo goes on show at Espace Images Vevey, par Juan Peces, British Journal of Photography, le 16/11/17;

L’Algérie dans le viseur de ses jeunes photographes, par Clémentine Spiler, Nova, le 4/11/17;

Ebifananyi – Andrea Stultiens – 27.10.2017 – 18.02.2018, FOMU, Anvers. Curators: Andrea Stultiens, Joachim Naudts (FOMU, BE) and Bas Vroege (Paradox, NL);

“The noun Ebifananyi is derived from the verb Kufanana, which means “to resemble”. Ebifananyi is the Luganda word for drawings, paintings and photographs.”

Emeka Ogboh. If Found Please Return to Lagos, C&, non daté;

Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany, 10 Nov 2017 – 04 Feb 2018

FESTIVALS ET BIENNALES

Telling Complex Truths About Africa at LagosPhoto Festival, par James Estrin, The New York Times Lens blog, le 27/11/17;

A biennial for Lagos, a city on the edge, par Oyin Olaniyan, Omenka, le 22/11/17;

Azu Nwagbogu on LagosPhoto Festival 2017 (interview), par Oyindamola Olaniyan, Omenka online, le 15/11/17;

A whole month of photography at LagosPhoto, par ZAM Reporter, ZAM, le 14/11/17;

YaPhoto 2017: Picturing the Present, YaPhoto, le 13/11/17;

“YaPhoto, in partnership with OTHNI, is pleased to announce YaPhoto 2017 a series of events taking place in Yaounde (Cameroon) from 27 November to 2 December 2017. The programme will include a photography exhibition, video art screenings, a panel discussion, a research seminar and portfolio reviews. Conceived as an ‘expo-lab’ and creative hub installed at OTHNI – a Yaounde-based multidisciplinary art space – this edition concludes the pilot phase of the Cameroonian photography platform before the project moves on to its next stage.”

PUBLICATIONS

What Is Curatorial Activism?, par Maura Reilly, ArtNews, le 7/11/17;

“Curatorial Activism” is a term I use to designate the practice of organizing art exhibitions with the principle aim of ensuring that certain constituencies of artists are no longer ghettoized or excluded from the master narratives of art. It is a practice that commits itself to counter-hegemonic initiatives that give voice to those who have been historically silenced or omitted altogether—and, as such, focuses almost exclusively on work produced by women, artists of color, non-Euro-Americans, and/or queer artists. The thesis of my forthcoming book, Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating, takes as its operative assumption that the art system—its history, institutions, market, press, and so forth—is an hegemony that privileges white male creativity to the exclusion of all Other artists. It also insists that this white Western male viewpoint, which has been unconsciously accepted as the prevailing viewpoint, “may––and does––prove to be inadequate not merely on moral and ethical grounds, or because it is elitist, but on purely intellectual ones.”

MARCHÉ DE L’ART

New contemporary art museum shows off complex identities of Africa, PBS News Hour, le 27/11/17;

“Africa’s first contemporary art museum just opened its doors in Cape Town, South Africa, featuring art from across the continent and the African diaspora. The grand new space has a grand ambition: to tell the stories of a diverse continent and reclaim how it and its people are perceived. Jeffrey Brown reports.”

Salimata Diop : “La cote des artistes africains est en train de monter”, propos recueillis par Viviane Forson, le Point Afrique, le 10/11/17;

In Conversation with Missla Libsekal. Art X: Expanding the Notion of Art Fair in Lagos, par Theresa Sigmund, C&, le 3/11/17;

Alter Native Artists Initiative A.N.A.I Visual Arts foundation to launch in Lagos, par Lehlé Baldé, Business Day, le 24/10/17;

Salimata Diop : « Affirmer la philosophie de AKAA en tant que foire internationale ». Entretien d’Anaïs Pachabezian avec Salimata Diop , Africultures, le 27/10/17;

LES ANNONCES DU MOIS

Le MuPho (Musée de la Photographie de St Louis, Sénégal) a été inauguré le 25/11/17;

“The MuPho (Photography Museum of Saint-Louis) will open on 25th November 2017, ahead of the Saint-Louis Forum. The MuPho was created first and foremost to shelter photographic archives. It is about collecting, cataloguing, restoring, promoting, and circulating the old photographic works from the Saint-Louis area and from Senegal, that currently only exist within private collections, unseen and unknown. It is about restoring Saint-Louis as rightful and historical gate between Europe, America, and Africa, as the birthplace of African photography. The Saint-Louis area is the motherland of photographers like the great Oumar Ly, who deserve recognition and cast a new light on our history.

This place is made to introduce art to a broad public. The MuPho gives a voice to Africa and curates an international and intercontinental dialogue through the lens of artists from all across Africa, and beyond.

The inaugural exhibition, entitled “Rêveries d’Hier, Songes du Présent” (Reveries from Yesterday, Dreams of Tomorrow), unveils a selection of archival photographs, black and white portraits of ladies from the 1950s Saint-Louis. These glimpses of the past start a dialogue with contemporary works from all across Africa. From Ivory Coast, Benin, Burkina, Nigeria, or Mozambique, artists – renowned or rising stars of the contemporary art world – take us into their respective universes, timeless imaginaries and modern fairy tales. However, each artwork engages with us, comments and questions our presence. Highlights of the MuPho collection include photographs by David Uzochukwu, Fabrice Monteiro, Mario Macilau, Laeila Adjovi, and Malick Welli.” (Source: Mario Macilau, November Newsletter)

Musée de la photo d’art : le MuPho ouvre à Saint-Louis, par Irène Idrisse, Au Sénégal, le 29/11/17;

ICAF Lagos 2017 Participating Artist List

“The artistic director of ICAF Lagos, Aderemi Adegbite, and Abraham Oghobase will co-curate the 2017 edition of the festival, which will open on December 6th and run until December 10th 2017 in Iwaya community.”

Zanele Muholi Awarded France’s Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, par Alex Greenberger, Artnews, le 22/11/17;

Culture – Mali – Ouverture de la biennale de photographie de Bamako (2 décembre 2017-31 janvier 2018), France Diplomatie (site du Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères français)

Les Rencontres de Bamako, Biennale africaine de la photographie du 2 décembre au 31 janvier 2018. Arte, le 20/11/17.

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