Aïda Muluneh. Mous Lamrabat. Prince Gyasi. Thandiwe Muriu. Zanele Muholi. These are just a few contemporary African photographers – from Ethiopia and Ghana to Kenya and Morocco – making waves in the art world. But, what about those who came before? Archivist and writer Amy Sall addresses this question in her new book, The African Gaze. Published by Thames & Hudson, this stunning compendium takes the reader on a journey through time to uncover Africa’s greatest lens-based practitioners. There are 25 photographers and 25 filmmakers featured, each with biographies that place them in context and footnotes that invite readers to learn even more. Some of the artists included are already starting to receive more international recognition, such as Seydou Keïta, Sanlé Sory and Ernst Cole. However, the volume really shines when it comes to spotlighting past visionaries overlooked by the canon.
Many will know Keïta’s studio photographs showing the fashionably dressed people of Mali. However, fewer will recognise the name of his mentor, Mountaga Dembélé (1919-2004), who dubbed himself the “first Black photographer in Bamako.” Sall introduces us to him in The African Gaze, highlighting the artist’s archive of family portraits. One shows two women with arms over each other’s shoulders and fingers interlaced. Dembélé overlays purple and gold over the monochromatic base photograph to inject colour into the accessories and clothes of his subjects. The lens-based artist was known for his powerful vision for the overall piece and would often direct the poses of his clients in order to achieve the most interesting final result. In an interview with scholar Érika Nimis, Dembélé shared: “I decided on the poses people took… I organised all of that myself…Even the way the bandanas were tied, I did it for them.” As the Malian photography scene grows bigger and bigger – with events like Bamako Encounters spotlighting lens-based creativity since 1994 – this is a moment to give credit to an early pioneer of the medium.
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