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Exhibition: ‘Samuel Fosso’ at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg

Exhibition dates: 22nd October, 2022 – 10th April, 2023

Curator: Jürgen Tabor

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962) 'Archives from Studio Photo National, Samuel Fosso's studio in Bangui' Nd from the exhibition 'Samuel Fosso' at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Oct 2022 - April 2023

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Archives from Studio Photo National, Samuel Fosso’s studio in Bangui
Nd
© Samuel Fosso  courtesy Jean-Marc Patras / Paris

Another exhibition on this wonderful artist with additional photographs… one of four large exhibitions that have take place recently in Europe and America. The other three being:

Samuel Fosso: The Man with a Thousand Faces at the Walther Collection, Germany, May – November 2022
Samuel Fosso: Affirmative Acts at the Princeton University Art Museum, November 2022 – January 2023
Samuel Fosso: African Spirits at the Menil Collection, Houston, August 2022 – January 2023

A well deserved flavour of the year!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Museum der Moderne Salzburg for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Installation view of the exhibition Samuel Fosso at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg showing at left, photographs from the Archives from Studio Photo National
Photo: Rainer Iglar

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Archives from Studio Photo National, Samuel Fosso’s studio in Bangui
Nd
© Samuel Fosso  courtesy Jean-Marc Patras / Paris

Installation view of the exhibition Samuel Fosso at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg showing photographs from the series 70’s Lifestyle
Photo: Rainer Iglar

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
70’s Lifestyle
1974-1978
Gelatin silver print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Samuel Fosso (Cameroonian, b. 1962) 'Self-portrait' 1975-1977

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
70’s Lifestyle
1974-1978
Gelatin silver print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Introduction

Samuel Fosso (Kumba, CM, 1962 – Bangui, CF; Paris, FR) is one of the most renowned African photographers working today. He has been a key innovator in the great tradition of African studio photography since the mid-1970s, developing and successively refining a distinctive form of explicitly theatrical self-portraiture. Fosso’s self-portraits blend photography with performance and intertwine autobiographical themes and conceptions of the self with political and historical perspectives. The works articulate the complexity and diversity of contemporary identities and explore the relations between Africa and the East and West in the era of post-colonialism and globalisation.

Organised by the Generali Foundation at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, the retrospective presents a selection from Samuel Fosso’s most important bodies of work. It is the first major exhibition of Fosso’s art in Austria and one of his first solo shows in the German-speaking countries.

Featuring elaborate makeup and lavish costumes, props, and sets, Fosso’s autofictional self-portraits are not so much self-dramatisations as self-transformations. He slips into roles and borrows identities – from pivotal figures in history as well as social archetypes, many of them with deep roots in the globally networked visual memory. Embodying these icons and representations, he interrogates their impact on media, society, and politics, casting himself as a surrogate and catalyst. Fosso’s self-portraits are highly artificial scenic productions on the stage of the photography studio, where he is photographer, performer, and director in one. With analytical acumen and acting skills, he deftly exposes and undercuts social codes around bodies, attire, poses, facial expressions, and gazes and collective assignments of identity based on gender, sexual orientation, and ethnic and social background.

After a brief apprenticeship, Fosso opened his own studio for portrait photography in 1975, when he was thirteen. His business success rested on his flair for fashion and aesthetics and his talent for encouraging his clients to show off their personal style. Having spent his workday taking portraits of paying customers, he switched to the other side of the camera in the evening: taking inspiration from West African and African-American music, youth culture, and political rebellion, he donned tight shirts, extravagant bell-bottoms, platform shoes, and offbeat props to stage himself in unconventional and unconstrained poses. The result was Fosso’s early series of experimental black-and-white self-portraits now known under the title 70’s Lifestyle (1975-1978).

For many years, he shared his self-portraits only with private audiences. At the initiative of the French photographer Bernard Descamps, they made their public debut in 1994 at the inaugural Bamako Encounters – African Biennial of Photography. The self-portraits added an important aspect to the tradition of West African studio photography, which garnered considerable attention in the 1990s. In 70’s Lifestyle, Fosso limns an alternative vision of masculinity by playfully subverting conventions concerning the depiction of bodies, gender, and sexuality. Sustained by a newfound self-confidence, Fosso’s self-portraits reflect a search for fresh conceptions of identity after the early period of postcolonial transformation in the 1960s; they are also a gesture of emancipation from the suffering he experienced as a refugee in Nigeria and under the repressive Bokassa regime in the Central African Republic. Artistic aspects such as theatricality and the appropriation of media imagery that Fosso develops in 70’s Lifestyle become constants in his work.

In 1997, Tati, a French department-store chain, commissioned Fosso to conceive a new body of works. Fosso developed a series of self-portraits in bold colours, some of which became iconic. Hewing to his characteristic style of elaborate and meticulously thought-through masquerade, disguises, and sceneries, now laced with an unmistakable penchant for satire, the Tati series shows him alternating between a number of controversial identities. For instance, he impersonates archetypes of African as well as Western societies like the tribal chieftain, the golfer, and the “liberated” African-American woman. The series’ centrepiece, Le Chef (qui a vendu l’Afrique aux colons) (The Chief [Who Sold Africa to the Colonists]), is both a tribute to African tribal leaders and a critique of the temptations of power in the age of European colonialism.

In later series such as African Spirits (2008) and Emperor of Africa (2003), Fosso’s work takes on a more pronounced political edge. In African Spirits, he embodies historic protagonists of the pan-African independence and civil rights movement including Angela Davis, Patrice Lumumba, Haile Selassie, Martin Luther King Jr., and Muhammad Ali. The large-format self-portraits reenact historic pictures from magazines and newspapers. The satirical-critical element of Tati gives way to a thoroughly serious process of identification: bringing his protagonists to life, Fosso not merely draws a connection between their legacy and his own experience, he seems to positively fuse with them in the strikingly convincing impersonations. The portraits in African Spirits pay homage to the campaigners for civil rights and colonial independence while also suggesting their extraordinary gift for self-dramatisation and media savvy, which helped them frame and disseminate their political ideals.

In the series Emperor of Africa, Fosso grapples with the complexities of the power differential between China and Africa by casting himself in the role of the controversial Chinese revolutionary and Communist Party leader Mao Zedong. In his reenactments, Fosso portrays Mao not only as a liberator, but also as a symbol of a modern imperialism. African leaders initially welcomed China’s growing economic and cultural presence, but the exercise of the power that came with this presence has increasingly prompted concerns. “As a performer, Fosso is both subject and questioner, the man behind the mask, interrogating the imperial and the postcolonial in equal measure.” (Olu Oguibe)

Born in Cameroon, Samuel Fosso spent the first part of his childhood in Nigeria. After the Biafran War, he moved to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. Having completed a brief apprenticeship, the teenaged Fosso opened his own studio for portrait photography in Bangui in 1975, a business he ran until 2014. That year, his home was ransacked during an armed conflict in the Central African Republic, and the photographic archive of his commercial studio was destroyed; some of the material was later reconstructed. The artist lives and works in Bangui, Central African Republic, and Paris, France.

Text from the Museum der Moderne Salzburg

Installation view of the exhibition Samuel Fosso at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg showing photographs from the series Tati
Photo: Rainer Iglar

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
La femme américaine libérée des années 70 (The Liberated American Woman of the 1970s)
1997
From the series Tati
Chromogenic print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
The Chief (who sold Africa to the Colonists)
1997
From the series Tati
Chromogenic print
© Samuel Fosso, Generali Foundation Collection – Permanent Loan to the Museum der Moderne Salzburg

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
The Golfer
1997
From the series Tati
Chromogenic print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Installation view of the exhibition Samuel Fosso at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg showing photographs from the series Tati
Photo: Rainer Iglar

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Le Rocker (The Rocker)
1997
From the series Tati
Chromogenic print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Le Pirat (The Pirate)
1997
From the series Tati
Chromogenic print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Le sauveteur (The Lifeguard)
1997
From the series Tati
Chromogenic print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Installation view of the exhibition Samuel Fosso at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg showing at left, photographs from the series Fosso Fashion, 1999; in the centre, photographs from the Archives from Studio Photo National; and at right, photographs from the series Tati 1997

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Self-portrait
1999
From the series Fosso Fashion, 1999
© Samuel Fosso courtesy Jean-Marc Patras / Paris

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962) 'Mémoire d'un ami' 2000

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Mémoire d’un ami (Memory of a friend)
2000
Gelatin silver print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Mémoire d’un ami
2000
Gelatin silver print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962) 'Le rêve de mon grand-père' 2003

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Le rêve de mon grand-père (My grandfather’s dream)
2003
Chromogenic print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Installation view of the exhibition 'Samuel Fosso' at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg showing photographs from the series 'African Spirits'

Installation views of the exhibition Samuel Fosso at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg showing photographs from the series African Spirits
Photo: Rainer Iglar

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
African Spirits (Nelson Mandela)
2008
Gelatin silver print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
African Spirits (Angela Davis)
2008
Gelatin silver print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962) 'Self-Portrait (Malcolm X)' 2008

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
African Spirits (Malcolm X)
2008
Gelatin silver print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962) 'Self-Portrait (Muhammad Ali)' 2008

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
African Spirits (Muhammad Ali)
2008
Gelatin silver print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Installation view of the exhibition Samuel Fosso at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg showing photographs from the series Emperor of Africa
Photo: Rainer Iglar

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Emperor of Africa
2013
From the series Emperor of Africa
Chromogenic print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Installation view of the exhibition Samuel Fosso at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg showing photographs from the series Black Pope
Photo: Rainer Iglar

Samuel Fosso (Nigerian born Cameroon, b. 1962)
Black Pope
2017
Chromogenic print
© Samuel Fosso, courtesy of Jean Marc Patras, Paris

Museum der Moderne Salzburg
Mönchsberg 32
5020 Salzburg, Austria
Phone: +43 662 842220

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday: 10am – 6pm
Wednesday: 10am – 8pm
Monday: closed

Museum der Moderne Salzburg website

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Exhibition: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen: The Camera as a Mirror’ at the Moderna Museet, Malmö, Sweden

Exhibition dates: 18th February 2012 – 22nd April 2012

Curator: Magnus af Petersens

Many thankx to the Moderna Museet for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled Film Still #56
1980
© Cindy Sherman. Courtesy of the Artist and Metro Pictures

Samuel Fosso (Cameroon, b. 1962)
Sans titre. De la série Années 70
1970-1980
Gelatin silver print
© Samuel Fosso, Courtesy JM Patras/Paris

Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936-2016)
Danser le Twist (Dance the Twist)
1965
Gelatin silver print

This spring we will be showing more than forty photographs from the period 1950-90 taken by leading artists such as Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Samuel Fosso, Tracey Moffatt, and Elina Brotherus. The exhibition focuses on the art of portrait photography and how the artist in his or her studio creates images that depict people not just as they actually are, but also as they would like to appear.

Moderna Museet’s collection of photography is among the foremost in Europe, it includes some of the most prominent figures in the history of photography. Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, and Robert Mapplethorpe are all big names in photography, artists whose work often revolves around concepts of identity, sexuality, and performativity. The photography studio is a place for masquerades and manipulations, a stage where various identities and roles can be tested. It therefore problematises the idea that a portrait is meant to convey some truth about the subject’s inner life. How do we distinguish a staged scene from reality? Is it even possible to make such a distinction? How free are we to form our own identity? If it’s a matter of choosing a role, what roles are available to us?

Andy Warhol’s Polaroid pictures, whose title, Ladies and Gentlemen, has also provided the name for the exhibition, are examples of his interest in – or rather his obsession with – celebrities. From industrial magnates to movie stars, from rock musicians to the “superstar” friends who hung out around the Factory, his fabled studio. In the world of pop art and popular culture, surface is everything. Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs are instead classically composed – stylised and aesthetically formed. In the controlled environment and lighting of the photo studio, he strives not for realism but for beauty. Here role-play becomes a part of the picture’s constructed character.

In Cindy Sherman’s suite of images called Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980), she plays with film clichés. The scenes and characters in her photographs seem familiar, but in fact it’s always Sherman herself we see in the leading role. Using the camera as a mirror, she takes on and explores various roles. It’s a game of trying on identities that is familiar to teenagers in particular the world over, a game we play in an attempt to find ourselves, or rather to construct an individual identity. One of the many ways in which Sherman’s pictures have been interpreted is as a feminist critique of the limited number of roles available to women.

This exhibition also presents several works by Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé, and Samuel Fosso, studio photographers who work primarily with portrait photography. Keïta’s studio was next-door to a movie theater in Bamako, the capitol city of Mali. Sidibé takes pictures not just in his studio but also at weddings and other parties. His photographs from Bamako in the 1960s reflect the great hope that came with liberation from French colonial power. Fosso opened his studio in Bangui, in the Central African Republic, when he was still a teenager. He is best known for a series of self-portraits in which he dons a variety of outfits to assume different roles.

Press release from the Moderna Museet website

Francesco Vezzoli (Italian, b. 1971)
Portrait of H.R.H The Princess of Hanover (Before & After Salvador Dalí)
2009
© Francesco Vezzoli/BUS 2012

Moderna Museet Malmö
Gasverksgatan 22 in Malmö

Moderna Museet Malmö is located in the city centre of Malmö. Ten minutes walk from the Central station, five minutes walk from Gustav Adolfs torg and Stortorget.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 11 – 17
Mondays closed

Moderna Museet Malmö website

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