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Fosso exhibits at National Art Gallery

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VETERAN French photographer, Samuel Fosso, is exhibiting his works at the National Art Gallery in Bulawayo.

VETERAN French photographer, Samuel Fosso, is exhibiting his works at the National Art Gallery in Bulawayo.

Report by Khulani Nkabinde

Entitled Photographic Series of Self Portraits 1970-2008, the photographs portray Fosso posing as different characters and in some instances even as a woman. Fosso’s works have an outstanding quality and individual style.

In some of the photos, Fosso poses as Nkwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Nelson Mandela and Haile Selassie (former heads of African states).

“Fosso is a great African artist,” David Germain-Robin, co-ordinator of the co-operation and cultural affairs at the French Embassy in Zimbabwe, said. Germain—Robin described Fosso’s work as “powerful”. He said it was important that the exhibition was made accessible to the public.

Raphael Chikukwa, curator at the National Art Gallery in Harare, said Fosso is one of the most outstanding African photographers.

“In my view Fosso is one of Africa’s most eminent photographers, and his African Spirits and Tati series of self-portraits is here for the Zimbabwean audience. African Spirits presents the artist inhabiting various icons of black identity, from cultural leaders to the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, while the Tati series shows Fosso dressed up as fictionalised characters,” Chikukwa said.

Fosso, who is in Europe at the moment, was quoted in the 5 Continents book saying: “As in all my works, I am both character and director. I don’t put myself in the photographs. My work is based on specific situations and people I am familiar with, things I desire, rework in my imagination and afterward, I interpret. I borrow an identity. In order to succeed, I immerse myself in the necessary physical and mental state. It’s a way of freeing me from myself. A solitary path. I am a solitary man.”

The exhibition will run at the gallery in Bulawayo until May and then move to Namibia afterwards.