2023-11-13 21:00:00
In the aisles of the Paris-Photo show, at the Grand Palais Éphémère, we can set ourselves a challenge: find African photographers and the galleries that exhibit them at Paris Photo. From November 9 to 12, 191 exhibitors from 26 countries were selected for the most prestigious fair in this specialty. Portraits, landscapes, abstraction, all styles were represented. Alongside vernacular photography, which is becoming a real trend, digital art has its own sector. More than 800 artists from the biggest names to emerging photographers, including more than 300 women, were exhibited. Among them, those from the African continent or the diasporas found a little more space.
Lee Shulman and Omar Victor Diop, an intriguing duo
Galerie Magnin A and Binome presented a very beautiful project created by four hands. Omar Victor Diop, a Senegalese photographer known for his self-portraits in extremely elaborate settings, teamed up with another artist, Lee Shulman, a collector of vernacular photographs. On a set of around sixty slides, from Lee’s Anonymous Project collection, all evoking a white Anglo-Saxon lifestyle of the 1950s-1970s, Omar Victor Diop slipped into the photo.
The feat of this “Being There” series was to integrate a self-portrait of Omar Victor Diop into the slide. The work of staging in the studio and editing the images was orchestrated by Lee Shulman. To fit perfectly into the original photo, Omar donned period costumes and struck a pose. Often, he slipped into the space left empty by the photographer around a table, next to his wife looking at the landscape. We thus find Omar in the snow, at a family meal, munching on his picnic in front of a Renault 16 or in the frame of a window, next to a dog who is also posing. This series “Being There”, through these revisited images of the Trente Glorieuses, challenges our society.
Artists who are regulars at the biggest fairs
In the Galerie 193 stand, all the decoration invited you to a stay in Marrakech. From the floor to the repetitive patterns of camels, from the furniture to the poufs in plastic boxes and cushions, and on the walls, this is the universe of the Moroccan photographer-designer Hassan Hajjaj, well known to the Parisian public since his major exhibition at the European House of photography (MEP) in 2019. We found his very colorful portraits, musicians, street people, a water carrier. The artist’s signature is also included in the framing of the photo. Frame made from tires, tin or tea cans, of the same model. From the first day, three works were purchased by American collectors, including a major institution.
The Clémentine de la Ferronnière Gallery exhibited two large prints by James Barnor, famous Ghanaian photographer, pioneer of African photography, known for his images of swinging London. Studio photographer, photo-reporter, Barnor worked for the famous South African magazine Drum. At Paris Photo, from the first day, the portrait of a young woman taken in the 1970s was sold.
« Black Pope »
At the Christophe Person Gallery, the first black pope was there. In monumental print. Samuel Fosso, a Cameroonian photographer, took the stage. He got the idea for this “Black Pope” series during the last papal election. It must be said that the question then arose. Is it possible for a black cardinal to be elected pope? Samuel Fosso then transformed himself into pope. He will be a bit like the first black pope, in a white cassock. The effect is stunning. The pose is perfect. In his series, he also showed a pope levitating on a meteorite. A nod to the work of Maurizio Catalan, La Nona Ora, a wax sculpture, where a meteorite fell on the pope. For the young gallery, the condition for being accepted into the ranks of Paris Photo was to present a major photographer. Samuel Fosso has had major exhibitions, at the Quai Branly museum and recently a retrospective at the MEP.
African galleries are making their way
Among the rare galleries on the continent, the Nigerian Rebe presented Nayobami Ogungbe and Neec Nonso, two emerging photographers. In his “Home” series, Ogungbe drew on the spaces and environment in which he grew up as a child. The image reveals itself behind a frame, like a veil of the past which rests on the memories. Neec Nonso is known for his work entitled Christmas and Clothes. In it, he focused on childhood memories of Christmas celebrations in Nigerian villages. In a landscape, a place, he embedded his image in different poses.
The South African Stevenson gallery, for its part, presented landscapes by Jo Ractliffe. Desolate landscapes, without human presence but which bear traces of a past, of violence or exploitation. Jo Ractliffe is considered one of South Africa’s most influential ‘social photographers’. The gallery also presented a work by the Norwegian-Nigerian artist Frida Orupabo who, through her collages, dismembers then reconstructs characters, in particular those of black women, as in “Hair Roller” where she posed arms of a white woman on a black woman.
Exile as a theme of inspiration
On immigration, the photographers’ testimony proved more impactful than the big speeches. The Lumière des Roses Gallery exhibited a set of hand-colored portraits of African immigrants posing in traditional clothing. These photos taken in Marseille in the 1950s bear witness to a history of migrations and a city long open to the world. In Nathalie Obadia’s gallery, Luc Delahaye looked at the migrants from Calais and Laura Henno told the story of these groups of adolescents, from the Comoros, who live with packs of dogs on the fringes of society in Mayotte. The photographer Mathieu Pernot stopped on the island of Lesbos to testify. The Eric Dupont gallery, which presented it, also offered to discover a series of archive photographs around African hair and headdresses.
Paris Photo, an unmissable annual event for international collectors, has given an increasingly important place to African photographers. Illustration was made with the talented Zanele Muholi exhibited in two galleries, Carole Knavenski and Yancey Richardson.
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