Life & Afterlife in Benin.

Life & Afterlife in Benin Edited by Alex Van Gelder NY: Phaidon Press, 2005. 135 pp., 78 b/w illustrations, 1 map, biographies, index. $59.95 hardcover.

Travelling Light Paul Weinberg Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004. 109 pp., 95 b/w illustrations. $47.95 hardcover.

Since the 1991 "Africa Explores" exhibition in New York, interest in African photography has steadily escalated, witnessed by its increased prevalence in both popular and academic exhibitions and publications. The prominence is due in part to the work of Andre Magnin, whose early monographs focused on urban portraiture by Malian photographers Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibe. As a result of these and similar projects portraiture has continued to be the predominant genre associated with African photography. Catalogs accompanying museum or gallery exhibitions and coffee-table books largely comprise the current published corpus on the topic. These favor glossy, often enlarged, black-and-white reproductions and minimal text. At first glance, the catalogs under review here seem to continue in this vein (in slightly smaller format), placing greater emphasis on the images than on the contexts in which they were created. However, both also reveal layers of complex ethical, sociohistorical, and personal layers of meaning.

Together these catalogs contribute to an expansion of the present scope of the discourse on African photography and raise critical awareness of current approaches to the subject. Both incorporate depictions of people that arguably reside outside the realm of commissioned portraiture. For example, although portraiture is its primary focus, Life & Afterlife in Benin includes depictions of Egungun masqueraders and arrested criminals. Images in Travelling Light consist mainly of "documentary" studies of multi-ethnic southern Africans. Thus, these texts complicate current ideas about the uses, styles, and significance of photography in Africa and help to move beyond portraiture as the defining genre.

Life & Afterlife in Benin and Travelling Light exemplify two distinct approaches to the presentation of African photography in international art contexts. Each corresponds to a specific agenda and ideology and is directed toward a particular audience. Life & Afterlife in Benin features commissioned images created by photographers working in present-day Benin during the 1950s-1970s, amassed, arranged, and exhibited by European collector Alex Van Gelder. Travelling, Light presents "documentary" photographs of southern Africans created during apartheid and post-apartheid eras (1979-2002) by white South African photographer Paul Weinberg. The images in this book, the most recent of seven devoted to his photography, have been compiled, organized, and presented by Weinberg himself.

Each catalog underscores the power of photography to communicate ideas about people and their ways of life. Photographs can highlight or mask individuals' identities, and by extension they can serve as symbolic images that reinforce culturally conceived notions. These prescribed meanings change within each new context. This is of central importance for these catalogs, as the images they contain appear in an entirely new context, removed in time and space from that of their original creation. Thus, these collections bring to light the important issue of authorship and its plurality as African photographs transition from local to global arenas. "Authorship" describes the position of those who create and communicate meaning in photographs and who participate in their control, physical manipulation, and dissemination thereafter. In an excellent essay on the fluctuation of meaning and authorship in the portraiture of Seydou Keita, Elizabeth Bigham (1999) identified four possible author-agents: the client, the photographer, the collector/curator, and the viewer. These agents help to illustrate the fluidity of authorship and the role specific authors have had in the formation and interpretation of meaning in each of these collections. Okwui Enwezor addresses this issue in Life & Afterlife in Benin. It will constitute a major thread throughout my analysis of both books.

Life & Death in Benin is an intriguing and important publication both in terms of its captivating imagery and the analytical issues it engages. Nearly eighty prints, dating from the 1950s to the 1970s, by nine photographers working in present-day Republic of Benin comprise the bulk of the catalog. Designed to accompany the 2005 exhibition of Alex Van Gelder's collection at the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Zurich, it features photographs by Benoit Adjovi, Jean Agbetagbo, Joseph Moise Agbodjelou, Leon Ayekoni, Sebastien Mehinto a.k.a. Pigeon, and Camille Tchawlassou. However, most are the work of three photographers: Bouraima Akodji, Edouard Mehome, and Christophe Mahoukpe.

Several authors in this catalog stress that Van Gelder's anthology concentrates on photographs that capture moments of rural life in modern Benin (p. 22 and inside dust jacket). This focus reflects his conscious attempt to amass a collection of African photography that is distinct in style and subject matter from that of Jean Pigozzi and his curator Andre Magnin. It is important to note, however, that although a few traveled to nearby villages for work, several photographers were based in the capital, Porto-Novo, or in other cities such as Cotonou or Abomey. Nevertheless, by focusing on photography in Benin, including rural as well as urban realities, this catalog helps to expand the scope of African photography. Images by some of these photographers have been previously exhibited--for example, Joseph Moise Agbojelou's photographs in Revue Noir's substantial catalog Anthology of African & Indian Ocean Photography (1999). Likewise, an abbreviated sampling of Van Gelder's collection was featured in the fifth "Rencontres" biennial of African photography in Bamako (2003). To my knowledge, this is the first instance in which these photographs have been the sole focus of a publication or an exhibition.

By incorporating images that depict funerary contexts, weddings, and criminal mug shots, the collection illustrates that photographers often work in more than one genre. This is a reality that the current emphasis on studio portraiture, with the exception of Erika Nimis's work (see, for example, Nimis 1998, 2005), has not yet come to terms with. Perhaps more importantly, these images illustrate that photography has been incorporated into established cultural, religious, and artistic practices in Benin. It therefore, if unintentionally, underscores that "African photography," far from being an uncomplicated umbrella category, is locale-specific. Christopher Pinney and Nicholas Peterson (2003) have rightly argued for "photography's other histories" to be incorporated into the grand history of photography. I would argue that there is a need for emphasis on photography's local histories in African photographic studies, which would include serious consideration of local aesthetics and related systems of meaning.

Life & Afterlife in Benin makes a slight yet recognizable attempt to address the issue of cultural specificity and to recognize locale-specific meaning and practices of photography. To this end, a brief historical overview of photography in Benin is provided by curator Thomas Seelig as an introduction to the collection. In addition, selected images are accompanied by short didactic paragraphs that contain religious or cultural information. Furthermore, a one-page essay by Van Gelder, who began collecting African photography in 2000, serves as a preface to Seelig's overview, providing some insight into his collecting objectives and practices.

Standing in contrast to those authors is the dissident, analytical voice of esteemed critic and curator Okwui Enwezor, whose welcome if unexpected participation in this catalog facilitates my critique. Enwezor's essay brings to light several critical, interrelated issues. I will discuss three of the most prominent: authorship (though he does not employ the term itself, the issue of shifting authorship is fundamental to his analysis), the "surrealist effect," and the importance of local meaning and aesthetics in studies of photographic imagery.

The authorship of the collected images in this catalog, and by extension their symbolic meaning, has shifted. Removed from the primary coauthors, the photographers and their clients, it now rests with the collector Alex Van Gelder, the curator Thomas Seelig, and the intended Western viewer. The collector and curator frame the images according to a particular ideology which mediates the viewer's interpretation. Each of these agents assigns to them new meaning, wholly different from that of their original context. It is this transformation of meanings that Enwezor takes issue with in his critique.

As the title implies, photography played a significant role in the life and afterlife of the individuals who commissioned these images. These photographs record important events and personal accomplishments, such as weddings and holy communions, as well as spiritually charged moments at the time of death and when a family's ancestors are reincarnated in the Egungun masquerade. Intimate and highly personal images, they were intended to capture particular aspects and moments of a person's identity. Most were meant to serve as images of present and future remembrance and commemoration (except in the obvious case of the criminal mug shots.) Stripped of their original intention and purpose, the individuals in these photographs have been recast by Van Gelder as anonymous criminals, voodoo spiritualists, the disfigured, and the deceased. Thus, Enwezor justly questions Van Gelder's curatorial rationale in amassing such a collection which, through its repetition and decontextualized presentation, appears to represent "carnivalesque" oddities.

Enwezor compares the psychological impetus of Van Gelder to that of nineteenth and twentieth century colonial photographers and ethnographers. In so doing, he identifies what he calls the "surrealist effect" as the motivating factor behind the selection and presentation of the images in this catalog. He holds that the "surrealist effect" is latent in the Western imagination, and as such it is readily "applied as a superintending vision and mode of translating Africa" (pp. 8). For Enwezor this effect stems from a kinship formed in the early twentieth century between Surrealism and ethnography. In short, the "surrealist effect" describes the process of de- and re-contextualizing images of Africans in Western contexts. "Alienating signifier from signified" in the Western mind, this process allows images of Africans to represent psychologically distanced, anonymous specimens or "types" of persons. As such, they can be read as "spectacle" with an affecting purpose to shock, excite, amaze, or revolt. Enwezor refers to such depictions as "mental images" that communicate and reinforce Western stereotypes of Africa as the "Dark Continent." If this is not readily apparent in the collection of images, and I contend along with Enwezor that it is, a descriptive phrase on the inside dust jacket quells any doubt of this bias. It reads, "Marked by dark dramas and deep mysticisms ... lie astonishing images of revenants and ju-ju men; voodoo priests and priestesses; thieves and murderers; prostitutes and pimps--and most startlingly, an extraordinary sequence of apres-mort or deathbed portraits."

Enwezor's "surrealist effect" is rife with psychological and ethical implications. In this context, remarkably, the term serves as a euphemism for blatant scrutiny of the imperialistic and stereotyped overtones of the catalog and of the aesthetic motivations of Alex Van Gelder. It is a valid and necessary critique rendering anything but a self-reflexive reading of these images nearly impossible. However, it raises an important question: Why is Enwezor's critique included in the catalog as a preface to the collection itself? It is difficult to presume that the galvanizing, though lightly veiled, criticism Enwezor levels at Van Gelder would go unnoticed by any reader, least of all the collector, curator, and publisher.

At the end of his eight-page essay, Enwezor's focus turns toward locating local aesthetics and meaning in photographs. Outside the work of a handful of scholars such as Stephen Sprague, this is an area that research on photography in Africa has been slow to address. Regrettably, yet not surprisingly, it is largely absent from this catalog as well, save for a few didactic paragraphs on priests, priestesses, and Egungun masquerades. To address this void, Enwezor draws comparisons with Yoruba photographs, arguing that the Yoruba are culturally and geographically related to Benin. He briefly discusses three Yoruba aesthetic concepts explored by Sprague in the 1970s, which is helpful as an illustration that such local meanings and aesthetic significations exist (p. 11). However, perhaps a more productive and informative, not to mention respectful, suggestion would be to include the voices of the photographers (and if possible, their clients) themselves. The recent passing of three of these photographers makes this point all the more pressing.

In this catalog, the photographers themselves have been reduced to names and brief biographical paragraphs, compiled by Benoit Adjovi, appearing at the back alongside a map of Benin. They all but disappear in the decontextualized presentation of the imagery. The work of each photographer is interspersed among that of the others. They are not arranged chronologically, thematically, or geographically. This renders an appreciation for the artists' individual style, creative strategies, and oeuvre an arduous task. It does not readily reflect, for example, the crisp, clean lines of Benoit Adjovi's work, the narrative postures in many of Christophe Mahoukpe's portraits, the muted contrasts in Bouraima Akodji's images, or the fact that only two photographs are included by "arguably Benin's best known photographer," Joseph Mois Agbodjelou. In one case, two group portraits of the same young men by Christophe Mahoukpe are separated by fifteen pages. The majority of mug shots and deathbed photos appear toward the end of the text. No explanation is given. What is apparent, however, is the prevalence of centrality, symmetry, formality, low camera angles, and restrained expressions in the photographs. Perhaps this is indicative of local aesthetic preference and meaning as well as photographic training.

Standing in contrast to such treatment of the photographer is Travelling Light. The entire composition of this publication reflects the philosophy, ideals, aesthetics, goals, artistry, and life's work of an African photographer. Travelling Light is a collection of sensitively captured and artfully framed moments in the daily lives of southern Africans. These images reveal heterogeneous people and places sought out or encountered by renowned South African photographer Paul Weinberg during his photographic journeys throughout the region. Spanning a period of more than twenty years, the beginning of which coincided with the volatile era of apartheid, his images were created for the alternative press and its antiapartheid cause as well as for his own personal enjoyment. Examples of both types of imagery are included here. Most are politically charged. Though all depict individuals and groups, he does not refer to them as portraits. Instead he considers them "documentary" photographs; not surprising considering the nature of his career as a photojournalist. For him, these images document the social, political, and personal transitions experienced by "southern Africans," a category that includes Namibians, Zimbabweans, and Botswanaians as well as South Africans. They tell the stories of the past and serve as a reminder of a difficult history. As such, within them they hold warnings and suggestions for present and future generations. In the context of this publication, these photographs are intended to resonate with the memories and hopes of Weinberg's local audience, while simultaneously captivating the hearts and minds of Western viewers.

In this book, Weinberg titled his photographs and arranged them into ten series or chapters, organized thematically as opposed to chronologically. Many images in this collection have never before been published. Others have previously appeared, for example, in his solo exhibitions "Kosi Bay, the Survival of the Fisherman" (1995) and "In Search of the San" (1998-99) and in publications such as In Search of the San (1997). Furthermore, a number of the photographs were solicited and funded by politically motivated private individuals, organizations, and journals, such as Black Sash, the Environment and Development Agency, Staffrider, and Afrapix, which he co-founded with photographer Omar Badsha. As such, they were intended to serve as powerful anti-apartheid propaganda.

Here they have been reframed under the title Travelling Light. In his preface, Guy Berger discusses this title as a double-entendre that above all emphasizes the personal photographic voyage of Paul Weinberg. Travelling Light refers to Weinberg as a professional who conveys and preserves his travels by "capturing light" with his camera. Equally, the title contrasts "light," which implies play, happiness, and beauty (personified in the catalog by depictions of children), with the weighty baggage of apartheid that is inherent in many of the images.

Writers often compare Weinberg's photographs with those created by photographers who worked for the Farm Security Administration in the United States during the Great Depression. Similarities in the appearance and purpose of his images and those by Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, for example, are quite striking. He shares with them a clear sense of social justice and a desire to expose social inequities. His struggle is the visual and public condemnation of the demoralizing practice of apartheid. Many of the images in this book are quite successful at readily conveying those sentiments. In fact, a certain bias is evident in his imagery. In general, his depictions of Indian and black southern Africans are idealized and romanticized, inciting empathy and identification with the viewer. Alternately, most of his images of white South Africans, save for those in "The Jol" and "Trains and Travel" series, are objectifying, unflattering, and at times even ominous or repulsive.

Without the names of depicted individuals and corresponding contextualizing information beyond date, location, and title, these images operate as anonymous symbols. They represent "types" or categories of people who in turn suggest a certain emotional or intellectual significance. The meaning they are intended to convey is communicated through compositional and framing techniques. At times, the space between the subjects themselves, or between them and the camera lens, is used to suggest a psychological or emotional as well as a physical distance. Often, architectural posts and walls or mechanical framing devices such as the form of a bicycle or the rear window of an automobile compose the scene and provide a sense of separation. The most potent of these creative strategies is his clever use of juxtaposition.

Weinberg employs juxtapositions as a latent and powerful communicative tool in nearly all of his images. These include contrasting his subjects in terms of gender, generation, race, or class, and in the case of "Young Trader," of inner and outer worlds. Another common juxtaposition he creates is between "the aware" (who are often children) and the "unaware." This is made evident in the subject's gaze--whether he or she recognizes the presence of the camera or not. His juxtapositions occur between his photographs as well as within them. In several instances Weinberg juxtaposes two separate images to emphasize his message. Sometimes the people depicted in them face opposite directions, usually toward each other. In one example, a photograph of an idealized white South African family is juxtaposed with that of delinquent youths, both in the act of playing card games. In such cases, pristine versus dilapidated environments communicate symbolic meaning and at times ironic social commentary. Most of the images seem to have been spontaneously captured. Some of the compositions and their implied visual and moral juxtapositions appear to have been arranged by Weinberg himself--they seem too blatant to have been merely accidental. Viewed individually, his photographs are striking, captivating, powerful images. However, compiled in this catalog they eventually become repetitive, predictable, obvious, and even patronizing. Thus, gradually, they begin to lack some of their original poignancy and become less affecting.

By contrast, the less politically motivated or perhaps even apolitical photographs, such as those in the "Train and Travel" series, do not feel repetitive. Romanticized images such as "Park Station" and "On the 'Quickie'" convey a tranquil, ethereal beauty that contrasts with his more abundant attempts at "documentary realism." Most often this sense is created by artistically framed, asymmetrical compositions, the use of soft natural light, and a focus on children. These photographs relate most closely to the theme, goals, and title of the book, reflecting a lighter, more intimate approach. In a sense, the entirety of this collection exhibits the prose and poetry of Paul Weinberg's photography.

Throughout the book, the tone and atmosphere are set by two "parallel strands," as he calls them, of expressive media: image and text. These include his photographs, introductory essay, and excerpts taken from his personal journal of the period. His journal entries often take the form of poetry, introducing each of the ten thematic sections. This technique provides the catalog with a sense of intimacy and humanity by incorporating local terminology or slang and telling anecdotal stories. At least, I imagine that it would incite a sense of intimacy in South African audiences. Because this information does not directly refer to particular images, although I was able to determine some connections, it remains somewhat mysterious and inaccessible to an outsider. Reinforcing my position as such, it suggests an inequality of audiences. Southern Africans here are treated as insiders, with a certain level of initiated knowledge and experience, while all others become outsiders. This for me is refreshing, as it usurps some of the monopolizing power Western audiences have grown accustomed to when considering African art and photography. Furthermore, descriptions of certain crucial apartheid and post-apartheid policies and organizations, such as the Group Areas Act, Land Act, the "bakkie" and the "Return to the Outback," are included as contextual background for unfamiliar audiences.

In his attempt to rebalance social inequalities, at times his images fall prey to patronization, reaffirming exotic notions of black Africans. Desiring to build respect and admiration for them, unconsciously he succumbs to some of the age-old stereotypes he wishes to contradict. Much in the same way African-American artists such as Aaron Douglas have done, some of Weinberg's pictures of southern Africans become idealizing symbols of a more pristine, unadulterated past. This is particularly true in his "The Land" and "The Last of the First" series. It is further supported by his statement referring to San or "Bushmen" as "Africa's first people, barely eking out an existence in a world that allowed no place for them" (p. 17). Rather than inciting a sense of otherness, oddity, and shock as in Life & Afterlife in Benin, some of Weinberg's images resuscitate the "simple," "noble" rural laborer. However, his depictions are not always thus charged. Testament to his agenda and ability are his images of black Africans that depict at once both modern and traditional realities. In these photographs, "contemporary" and "traditional" are no longer a divided paradigm, but are mutually affecting, co-existing realities.

Weinberg's voice, presentation, and attempt at respect and intimacy with his audience reinforces the issue of authorship as an element of analysis, and with it the inequality still in place in the treatment of African photography. This is an example of a white African photographer selecting images from his collection, arranging them, and displaying them of his own accord. He provides them with a title and thematic heading and speaks for himself and his images in this book. By contrast, most black African photographers, particularly those practicing outside of South Africa, are not afforded the same freedom. This is exemplified in Life & Afterlife in Benin, whose photographers are all but absent and largely silenced in the recontextualization of their images. Such collections reveal more about Westerners than about the individuals who created and used these images. If the interest is to facilitate mutual understanding and respect, to learn more about diverse cultures and individuals residing in locales different from our own, then it seems to follow that local meaning and the voice of the original co-authors (photographers and clients) should be presented with their creations. I look forward to future publications like Travelling Light, in which many more photographers from Africa will be afforded the opportunity to tell their own stories.

References cited

Bigham, Elizabeth. 1999. "Issues of Authorship in the Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keita." African Arts 32 (1):56-67.

Nimis, Erika. 1998. Photographes du Bamako de 1935 a nos jours. Paris: Editions Revue Noir.

--. 2005. Photographes d'Afrique de l'Ouest: l'experience Yoruba. Paris: Karthala.

Pinney, Christopher, and Nicolas Peterson, eds. 2003. Photography's Other Histories. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Revue Noin 1999. Anthology of African and Indian Ocean Photography. Paris: Revue Noir.

Weinberg, Paul. 1997. In Search of the San. Johannesburg: Porcupine Press.