Portrat Afrika; Fotografische Positionen eines Jahrhunderts.

Edited by Annette Czekelius and Michael Thoss

Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Munich, 2000. 119 pp., 88 color & 93 b/w illustrations. DM 24 softcover.

Portrat Afrika: Fotografische Positionen eines Jahrhunderts (African Portrait: A Century of Photographic Positions) may seem uncannily familiar. The 1996 Guggenheim exhibition "In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present" largely introduced African photography to a Western art community. Subsequent exhibitions on this subject, including the one associated with the catalogue under review (curated by Michael Thoss at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, January 15-March 12, 2000) and the Revue Noire exhibition and catalogue Anthology of African and Indian Ocean Photography (1998), have highlighted much of the same work. Many of the essays in Portrat Africa build on chapters in the Anthology and other sources, such as Snap Me One! Studio-fotografen in Afrika (Prestel, 1998). In this way, the catalogue represents its own anthology of writings on African photography. What becomes apparent, especially when the book is examined in relation to the Anthology and In/sight, is that it illustrates an emerging canon of African photography.

While some images may look familiar, Portrat Afrika is set apart from earlier sources through its visually stimulating design with an interweaving of text and image, full-page bleeds of many photographs, and interesting text and color changes from chapter to chapter. The book extends beyond the German-language audience, as most chapters or interviews are also included in their original French or English. Not only does this make the book marketable and useful to a non-German-reading public, but it ensures that the author's or interviewee's original words come through unfiltered. This said, the distinctions between the columns of text in German and the other languages are often difficult to decipher because of the switch in visual tones from chapter to chapter These visual disruptions make it necessary to become reacquainted with the printed word in each section, and often, where translations are included, to scan the page to distinguish between the different columns of language.

Portrat Afrika approaches African photography by acknowledging first a colonial heritage and then indigenous innovations. In his introductory essay Thoss suggests that the "colonial shadow," no matter how distant, is still at play in African photography: "The exhibition `Portrat Afrika' narrates an alternative perspective of the encounter between Europe and Africa and their mutually foreign cultures. At no time was this encounter one-sided" (p. 5). While colonialism is a distinct part of the history of African photography, many catalogues do not transcend that history to focus on the theoretical material of contemporary photography. Portrat Afrika is at its most interesting when it approaches the contemporary material.

Like the Anthology of African and Indian Ocean Photography, this book makes an effort to include artists' voices through several extensive interviews. Some of these closely overlap or republish earlier material; Bongi Dhlomo-Mautloa's interview with Zwelethu Mthethwa, "Township in Color," is an abbreviated version of their earlier dialogue published in Liberated Voices: Contemporary Art from South Africa (Museum for African Art, 1999). Others, however, provide new information, such as the interviews with Malick Sidibe and Dorris Harron Kasco, and permit the photographers' voices to come through. In "All Roads Lead to Lagos," for example, the photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi beckons us to crossroads in Lagos as if he wishes us to see the city from his unique perspective, or at least to get a sense of the feel, sounds, and smell of the city life captured in his images.

Hubert Filser and Peter Stepan's interview with Malick Sidibe echoes previously published dialogues with the artist but also moves beyond these in its theoretical content. When asked the distinction between photography and painting, Sidibe provided insight into his relation to his clients: "Photography is much more direct than painting. Beyond that, there is the social side. One doesn't see the camera, but one sees the photographer who is also capable of embellishing the figure and rendering the photo more beautiful" (p. 31). In contrast, Thoss's interview with Samuel Fosso focuses more on the artist's trajectory from studio photographer to a well-known entity on the global art market. Rather than analyzing theories of self-portraiture in relation to Fosso's work, Thoss directs the audience to focus on the idea of discovery. Fosso is asked to recount the story of how a French photographer sought his work for an exhibition in Bamako, Mali, and suggests: "This was how I was discovered" (p. 23). This interview reads as a story of the artist's life since his movement into a foreign market. One can only lament that Fosso was not asked questions of greater depth to provide insight into his interesting self-portraits.

Tobias Wendl's piece on Philip Kwame Apagya, "Die Wunderkammer der Philip Kwame Apagya," which closely overlaps his chapter in the Anthology of African and Indian Ocean Photography, also interweaves lengthy biographical quotes from Apagya. At times reading like a dialogue between Wendl and Apagya, it reveals the artist's background and the impetus for his unique color portraits with staged backdrops. With the help of this lengthy dialogue, Wendl situates Apagya in a moment in time in Ghanaian and world photography, drawing peripheral, formal comparisons to American pop art and challenging the definition of photography. The artist's statements often confront the boundaries of photography while providing insight into the blurring of reality and fantasy in his images:

   A picture may speak the truth, but one cannot see the truth. However, truth
   is not my major concern. I am more interested in creating prestige, fantasy
   and beauty.... My pictures are more like proverbs or palm nuts, things to
   break up, something in which the meaning can only be unplugged if you know
   how to look at them. Photography has a lot in common with magic (p. 65).

Statements such as this push the literature on African photography beyond the "colonial shadow" discussed by Thoss in his introduction. Similarly Heike Behrend's piece, "Fotografie als Wunschmaschine: Fotografische Praktiken in Kenia und Uganda," an echo of her chapter in Revue Noire's Anthology, is also a welcome addition to the literature on African photography. Her focus on the genre of staged studio shots in Kenya and Uganda is unique, and it expands the current canonical definitions of high and low art in the context of African photography.

The catalogue ends with Mark Sealy's interview of Stuart Hall, who addresses the positionality of black artists in the diaspora and opens a dialogue on issues of race, identity, and stereotyping. Hall's confrontation of difficult and challenging issues is an apt ending for the catalogue, as it raises many interesting questions sure to spark debate among artists and scholars:

   Nowadays people don't want to have the racial or ethnic signature attached
   to their work in any decisive way. They want to be seen as individual
   artists saying something distinctive. This is not as simple as it seems.
   Because they don't want to be plugged into the general British or European
   market--sink or swim. They want a little bit of the protectiveness which is
   gained by being part of a historical experience. But they don't want to be
   policed by it, they don't want to have to refer to it (p. 115).

This discussion also moves beyond the "colonial shadow." It points to the fact that African and diasporic artists cannot be categorized and that African photography in a Western venue should be considered just as much contemporary global art as, say, Ugandan or Nigerian art. There is still much room in the literature for the historical approach, but Portrat Afrika is at its best when it transcends the "encounter between Europe and Africa and their mutually foreign cultures." One can only hope that future exhibitions and catalogues will also view the work of contemporary African photographers through a global lens.

AIMEE BESSIRE is Assistant Professor of Art History at the Maine College of Art. She is currently a Getty Postdoctoral Fellow.