 |
| Another Congo |
A major exhibition of the work of
two most celebrated photojournalists in the world has begun in Lagos. The
magnum photographers, Alex Majoli and Paolo Pellegrin, perhaps the best-known
photojournalists of our times are the latest exhibit at Art Twenty One gallery,
thanks to Access Bank, Eko Hotel & Suites and other corporate organisations
which sponsored the exhibition in association with CT Arts Initiatives.
The exhibit includes the best of their pictures;
pictures of deep, elaborate landscapes and of the human dramas that play out
across them, scenes of labor, scenes of commerce, scenes of festivity, and
scenes of tranquility, crowd scenes and portraits, interiors and exteriors,
urban, rural, and wilderness, day and night, life and death.
The CEO of Art Twenty One, Caline
Chagoury, said “Art Twenty One is pleased to host Another Congo. Art
twenty One is intended to contribute to and solidify the growing art scene in
Lagos, as well as position the city as a major force in the international art
world.”
Chagoury said Art Twenty One is
dedicated to contemporary art in Lagos. The space is designed to make art
accessible to a large and growing audience who will be able to engage with a
rich and diverse range of contemporary art, cultural practice, and educational
art programmes.
When Director of LagosPhoto
Festival, Wunika Mukan, was addressing newsmen in Lagos recently, he disclosed
that 2015 will feature thirty-five photographers spanning eighteen countries in
a month- long programme of events. Interestingly, some of the
photographers are in Lagos and they have new stories to tell.
Not much is known about the
Republic of Congo compared to its larger Central African neighbour, the
Democratic Republic of Congo. The Republic of Congo has not been widely
documented, the way of concrete information. Titled “Another Congo” the work is a result of an artistic
commission documenting contemporary life in the Congo. The acclaimed
photojournalists have formed an intimate portrait of the Congolese culture
through an immersive photographic installation.
 |
| Majoli being interviewed |
It was launched during
Parisphoto in Paris, France in November 2014 and travelled to the
Rencontres d’Aries photography festival in Aries, France in July 2015.
In its first exhibition
on the African continent, art lovers turned out in their large number. Some of
them were mixing up and enjoying themselves while others gazed at Alex Majoli's stark black-and-white photographs
intimidating Art Twenty One, a 600 sqm space and platform dedicated to
contemporary art.
Another Congo leaves viewers to find their own interpretations. The
photographs can’t tell us all that we want to know. As one analyst put it the
images draw you in while the silence that surrounds them keeps you out. These
untitled photos leave viewers to find their own interpretations.
“This is the first day of the
exhibition, so you can tell me your perception, but at an art exhibition in
France, it was really well received,” says Majoli, who was in Lagos for the
exhibition fired back at newsmen who wanted his comment on reception. The
Italian photographer is associated with Magnum Photos known for his
documentation of war and conflict.
“The exhibition is a body of work we
worked for almost a year and half in Republic of Congo, that is Brazzaville. We
went there freely not necessarily to talk about the country, is like a sketch,
we were there working, encountering people taking the photograph of their
daily lives and altogether it became a body of work, we interviewed people in a
different kind of way, you can go through the pictures and may not understand
what is going on sometimes.” Majoli’s photographs are shot digitally, with a
strong flash, to create “theatre out of reality,” as he puts it.
Majoli and Pellegrin are both
longtime members of the Magnum photo agency, and the best of their work carries
on the tradition of inky, theatrical formalism exemplified by Magnum’s most
celebrated founders, Henri Cartier Bresson and Robert Capa.
Majoli, it appears, was feeling at
home. He attempted to compare the value people place
on art. “If you talk about the prospects of art work, the market or the
gallery, like this gallery here at Eko Hotel is really competitive to the ones
in New York, that is this particular gallery, on the matter of arts, art is
anything, it touches you in a way, something that refresh our heart, brains and
memory, that is art for me, and that is universal, it has nothing to do with
New York and Nigeria.”
This is
not Majoli’s first time in Lagos, Nigeria. He says “I have been here like
three or four times and am based in New York.” His colleague
Paolo Pellegrin, unfortunately, was not in Lagos during the presentation of
their work perhaps to test his popularity here.
In an interview, Majoli said he was
not looking at anything in particular in capturing these images. “I was trying
to go round the country and when anything captures my attention, I will start
work on that. For example, I was moving round and see this boy with Obama
picture boldly on his belt at the back, I found it really beautiful
and interesting, so I photographed it, it was a hologram with double faces
, even this guy who was our fixer, who was on a bar and relaxing
and the picture was very nice, and coherent in a way, so I photographed it. But
there are also the pictures of pigmies, we went on board to photograph pigmies,
but the pigmies exhibition you don’t really understand who they are, but they
are really beautiful people. They are next to each other and the pictures are
completely confusing,” he said.
He also captured a little bit of
their culture. “The culture is there anyway from a wedding, political
gathering, hunters going to the bush and trying to hunt antelopes, funerals,
fishermen, we tried to capture all that , like the picture of the guy there in
a boat near the river trying to capture gorilla and following the
gorilla, though we don’t see the gorilla, is really an abstract. The experience
was great, it was really a welcoming experience and nice country, I love to be
there, nice, good for memory. They are absolute.”
Majoli has documented diverse
subjects including the closure of an insane asylum in Greece, the Taliban in
Afghanistan, and Iraq, favelas in South Africa, and a long term project about
port cities around the world. He has contributed to publications such as
Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair and National Geographic.
No comments:
Post a Comment