With documentary photography becoming more popular in South Africa and many of John’s students being involved in it, they are writing their own history. Most of them find it very interesting to photograph the struggling, working class, but also the upcoming middle class serves as a subject for many projects.
Jorrit Dijkstra interviews John Fleetwood of the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg.
“His latest exhibition, he says, is inspired by childhood memories. Perhaps by diving into his early life, his beginnings, he hopes to better understand his vantage point. Although highly unlikely, if we are lucky, we might get a quote or two on what he has discovered about himself. Fortunately for Gor, even though he is so headstrong and very efficient in fleeing from interviews, his work in most instances is provocative, tells its own story, and can in fact survive and thrive without his presence.”
With these words Zihan Kassam concludes her essay on Kenyan artist Gor Soudan.
Anthropologist James Clifford argues that art museums must learn from anthropologists; for example, to see objects as a process and not just as a product. The use of the object adds value. This is exactly what happens when the Kabra mask dances and gives the ancestors an opportunity to manifest themselves. Masks make sounds, says Clifford, they move, but they lose that ability in museum display cases. Once they end up in a museum, they stop their function in society.
Annemarie de Wildt of the Amsterdam Museum tells the story of the creation and the acquisition of the dancing Kabra Mask.
“Call and Response is a visual remembrance of the way in which the stories and histories of blacks in America have repeatedly been confused, smudged, silenced and fractured by those in power, those who hold the gaze.”
Alexandra Giniger reviews the latest exhibition of Glenn Ligon.
“My work is like the voice of the community where I come from. I use a lot of symbols and objects from that culture. But at first I could not reach my own people because they don’t go to the gallery, they don’t go to the museum. So I went into the community to work with the community. So now when I make something they get involved, they make some money from it. “
Chris Morvan interviews the Surinamese artist and director of the Nola Hatterman Art Academy Marcel Pinas.