A Dialogue with Samuel Fosso: Photography, Histories, Identities
CLICK! is pleased to partner with the North Carolina Museum of Art, the 21c Museum Hotel, and the University of North Carolina Department of Art and Art History to present a dialogue with Samuel Fosso.
Fosso is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Bangui, Central African Republic, and Paris, France. Born in 1962 in Kumba, Cameroon, he had to flee the persecutions caused by the Biafra war. He sought refuge in Bangui, where he opened his own photo studio at thirteen. Alongside his portrait work, he immediately began a series of self-portraits—a mode of representation he would never abandon. His expressive black-and-white self-portraits from the 1970s, making reference to popular West African culture, constitute a sustained and unprecedented photographic project that explores sexuality, gender, and African self-representation.
Image: Samuel Fosso, Self-Portrait (SM 6), 1973–78, printed 2010, gelatin silver print on archival paper, 19 11/16 × 19 11/16 in., Purchased with funds from the Friends of Photography Fund