AFRICA

Jo Ractliffe: Under a State of Emergency

“Ractliffe’s work, whether consciously or not, emerges at a time when the impossibility of representing experience started to gain purchase in discussions around the medium’s shortfalls.”

Samuel Fosso Autoportrait SIX SIX SIX

"Our point of view of the self is hidden and although personal subjectivity is widely considered to be the foundation of image-making at present, we have deluded ourselves for a great number of years suggesting that photography could ever be anything more than the self exposed through images of the exterior."   The greatest gift [...]

Guy Tillim: Things Come Together

“It is this binary position that implies the view that African colonization created only victims incapable of looking after themselves, impotent against their oppressors and incompetent without.”

Emmanuelle Andrianjafy: Nothing’s in Vain

“Everything about the city made me uncomfortable and raised questions: the landscape, the atmosphere, the situation, the agitation, etc. It seemed so imperfect. I wanted to understand this chaos.” To the West, is the Atlantic Ocean and the Americas. Facing East, the huge Sahara Desert. The city of Dakar in Senegal sits in between these […]

Chloe Sells: The Morass of Sacred Geometry

“Trees, leaves, flowers are all given the Sells treatment and become abstracted metaphors of the sacred geometry still found between light and organic materials within the aforementioned natural world.”

Elly Rwakoma: Sinking All the Tricks.

“He recalls developing his negatives by moonlight, having to make his way to the ferry on a road thick with often-time un-negotiable elephant herds. He tells of carrying his chemicals with him and cutting down his negatives to get a surplus of possibilities. I never had this.”

I have Come to Disappoint You: Michele Sibiloni’s “Fuck It”

@ Michele Sibiloni Its tick-box approach to images, the title, the cover, the text within capitalize on the “rough” Ugandan nightlife and seems very much directed at a Deutsche Bourse Prize/ Magnum/ Western White latte audience.   I usually start most of my reviews with a literary metaphor. I feel to do so is to […]

Jean Depara: “Kinshasa” (1951-1975)

  Lemvo Jean Abou Bakar Depara, known as Depara (1928–1997), was an Angolan-born photographer who worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Depara purchased his first video camera to record his wedding in 1950; four years later, he was made official photographer to the Zairian singer Franco. In 1975 he became official photographer to the […]

David Goldblatt: “Particulars” (1975)

“I seem to have an innate propensity which has been fed by life experiences and heightened by the kind of hyper-awareness that photography sometimes enables and demands…”   “My first awareness of a bodily particular that I can recall was of the bulges made by the flattened flesh of my inner thighs as I sat […]

An Interview with Cristina de Middel (2013)

“My work is more based on sequencing than in experiencing the aesthetics of the images so the book seems to be my perfect solution, plus, it is and object and the possibility of translating a concept or idea into something you can touch, smell, tear apart or archive makes it really interesting and complete.” Brad […]

Apartheid, White Society and Photography – David Goldblatt is Interviewed at Arles (2006)

Farmer’s Son with his Nursemaid. Marico Bushveld, December 1964, 1964 “During the years of apartheid, I was concerned with trying to…with exploring why people valued this peculiar and evil system and how they expressed those values in their homes, in themselves, in their bodies, in the things that they built.” Interview conducted by Laetitia Martinez, […]

ASX.TV: Pieter Hugo – “This Must Be The Place, Selected Works 2003-2011” (2012)

Pieter Hugo – This Must Be The Place – On view from 3 March until 20 May 2012 at The Hague Museum of Photography – www.fotomuseumdenhaag.nl/en NL: De carrière van de Zuid-Afrikaanse fotograaf Pieter Hugo (Johannesburg, 1976) is met recht ‘booming’ te noemen. Zijn monumentale foto’s, waarin het hedendaagse Afrika een hoofdrol speelt, krijgen inmiddels […]

MALICK SIDIBE: “PORTRAITS” (1960-1980)

  Born in 1935 in Soloba, Mali. Lives and works in Bamako. Malick Sidibe was born into a Peul family in a small village of Mali. He graduated from school in I952. After being noticed for his talent as a draftsman, he was admitted to the School of Sudanese Craftsmen in Bamako from which he […]

Richard Mosse – “Beyond Witness: New Approaches to Crisis Photography” (2011)

http://pulitzercenter.org/blog/videos-beyond-witness-new-approaches-crisis-ph… Pulitzer Center photographer Richard Mosse shares images from his project “Infra” (http://bit.ly/rvdaIu) We live in an era saturated with images of all kinds clamoring for our attention. Combine this with constantly shrinking space for serious, thought-provoking photography on complex issues, and a clear problem emerges. As a result, photojournalists must explore new ways to […]

Roger Ballen – “Selfportrait” (2011)

Selfportrait is a documentary film about the controversial photographer Roger Ballen. Born and bred in New York, he has lived in South Africa for nearly thirty years. The film sketches his development as photographer and, as a side-theme, the development of South Africa. ‘Selfportrait’ was filmed a few months after Ballen released his book ‘Outland’. […]

Roger Ballen – ‘Shadow Chamber’ (2007)

Twirling Wires, 2001   This demonstrates in a fresh and very personal way photography’s intrinsic ability to lead beyond our usual conception of reality without resorting to visual exaggeration.   Roger Ballen’s Shadow Chamber By Robert Fleck, Originally Published, Eikon Issue 57 – March 2007 Seeing Roger Ballen’s extensive portfolio Shadow Chamber – made over […]

An Interview with Malick Sidibé (2009)

“When I began to take photographs, I never imaged that my photos would travel around the world.”   Interview in Madrid for the PHotoEspaña Baume & Mercier 2009 Award Since 1960, Malick Sidibé (Mali, 1936) has produced photographs in his studio, Studio Malick, located in Bamako. These images with their pure gaze document popular culture […]

Pierre Verger – “Black Gods in Exile”

The picture-taking nomad was so awed by the charm of Brazil’s former capital and its citizens that, over the next 50 years, he chose it as the center of his life and as his base and starting point for countless trips to Africa.   Introduction to Pierre Verger – Black Gods in Exile By Manfred […]

Pieter Hugo in Conversation (2007)

Pieter Hugo in Conversation with Joanna Lehan (21 February 2007), Published in Messina/Musina, Punctum Editions, 2007 JL: Musina is the northernmost town in South Africa. Its name has been changed, and this fact is highlighted in the overarching title of your project, Messina/Musina. What is its significance? PH: Musina is situated just south of the […]

Peter Magubane – Rhodes University Ceremony (2006)

Public Orator: Paul Walters Rhodes University Graduation ceremony, Grahamstown, 7 April 2006 Mr. Chancellor, I have the honour to present to you Dr Peter Magubane for the award of the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa. The distinguished novelist Joseph Conrad wrote in a famous preface: “My task which I am trying to achieve […]

Pieter Hugo and the Hyena Men – “The Dog’s Master” (2007)

“The first series of pictures had caused varying reactions from people – inquisitiveness, disbelief and repulsion. People were fascinated by them, just as I had been by that first cellphone photograph.”   The Dog’s Master By Pieter Hugo These photographs came about after a friend emailed me an image taken on a cellphone through a […]

David Goldblatt – Afrikaners Photographed and Revisited (1975-2006)

“The ideology and apparatus of apartheid and the overwhelming power of the state to crush opposition became ever more present in our lives.”   Some Afrikaners Photographed, 1975 – Some Afrikaners Revisited, 2006 By David Goldblatt, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2006 I was born and grew up in Randfontein, a gold-mining town 40 kilometres west of […]

Some Sort of Place: Recent work by Roger Ballen (2005)

  Ballen’s pictures bring to life in a variety of ways what (Man) Ray illuminated: the impulse to externalise the chaos of the mind and emotions, and the possibility that the creative process may just as soon yield a monster as an object of beauty.   By Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, Art / South Africa, 2005 Certain […]

ASX.TV: Roger Ballen – “Dark Room, Roger Ballen’s printer – Dennis Da Silva” (2011)

http://docsonline.eu/?search=Selfportrait&type=title&docinfo=98 Selfportrait is a documentary film about the controversial photographer Roger Ballen. Born and bred in New York, he has lived in South Africa for nearly thirty years. The film sketches his development as photographer and, as a side-theme, the development of South Africa. ‘Selfportrait’ was filmed a few months after Ballen released his book […]

Pieter Hugo – ‘The Hyena and Other Men’ (2008)

“The first time I met up with the hyena men, as they have become known, the group was staying in a ramshackle three-bedroom apartment in Dei Dei Junction, a suburb of the Nigerian capital, Abuja.”     The Hyena and Other Men Text by Adetokunbo Abiola Ahmadu was 15 years old when he joined his […]

An Interview with Guy Tillim (2005)

Ntokozo (right) and his brother Vusi Tshabalala at Ntokozo’s place, Milton Court, Pritchard Street, from the “Jo’Burg” series, 2004   “This is obviously not a war in the conventional sense, but in the sense of a war between the have’s and have nots, undoubtedly.”   Peter Machen speaks to Guy Tillim about his Johannesburg series, […]

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