Camara on Certain Mornings

Mohamed Camara’s series, Certains Matins (certain mornings), possess the air of a sojourner’s memoirs to the center of rituals that usually, sometimes, and occasionally happen. His self-portrait, Certains matins, je suis le cactus de Sibérie, is a serenade of contrasting temperatures manifested in black skin against white snow. Certains matins, ma cousine me fait des trucs que je ne comprends pas, Certains matins, elle est la premiere à commencer la journeé à la fenetre, and Certains matins,  je prie mon dieu are homages to sacred aberrations. Yet Camara’s work, refreshingly, doesn’t offer definitive positions about post-colonial adaptation and the other usual  90s crit theory suspects

Stealing hearts on the international art circuit in 2003, Camara’s impressive early resume boasted all the widely traveled African art shows –Bamako 03, Bamako 05, Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography– alongside solo shows at Galerie Pierre Brullé in Paris, Zuiderpershuis in Belgium, and a 2004 Tate Modern solo exhibit, Untitled: Mohamed Camara. However since his Certains Matins series appeared in Bamako 2007, this digi-photographer-cum-footballer for Bamako has fallen off the radar save showing up in Galerie Hengevoss-Dürkop’s group show planet africa. Just maybe this lad of romantic liturgy will make a come back in this year’s Bamako 2009. If not, we’ll have to settle with murky editorial shots of footballing legs.

Sammy’s Spectacular Closet P.2

If you thought lens daddy Samuel Fosso’s closet-o-dictator couldn’t have gotten better after Le Chef, then you ain’t seen his newest series, African Spirits. At Paris’s Galerie Jean Marc Patras ‘til March and the highlight of Foam International Photography Magazine’s issue number 17, ‘Portrait?’ the b+w series pulls together a dazzling troupe of friends, enemies, heroes, and all around shady dudes. Flashing himself into Mobutu, Patrice Lumumba, Mohamed Ali, and Angela Davis to name a few, Fosso, as always, resembles his subjects better than your fave docudrama ever could. So if you’re broke like the rest of us and can’t make it to Paris, pick up a copy of Foam for hardcopy Sammys and Olu Oguibe’s article that confirms all the moma gossip.

M+M Ethiopian Style

An assemblage of bright ‘n primary colored plastic bowls, lights, and gyrating fans cribbed from household good stores, Assefa Gebrekidan’s installations are like a theme park birthed from the creative cooperation of Vladamir Tatlin, Ethiopian Orthodox painters, and the makers of Mouse Trap. Thematically playing with light as a substance of magic and missiles, Gebrekidan calls viewers up to the switch plate, leaving the passive to venture through his abstract ode to readymades in the dark. Exhibited at London’s Camden Arts Center during his 2005 fellowship, the set of six, Coming Out, A Glimmer of Hope, Wheel of Time, Unwanted Guest, A Cracking Night, and Inner Power is Gebrekidan’s only work to be found on the net, begging the question, where did his infamous photos of clay pot destruction wander off to?

Everybody loves Lolo

 

Shot in Jo’burg’s polychromatic streets, Lolo Veleko’s Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder (2004+) and Wonderland (2007+) are sexy compendiums of young fashionistas and urban spots that boldly declare Urban Africa ain’t just Hyena men and crumbling Lumumbas. Owing to her subjects’ boss coordination of accessories and necessaries, Veleko’s photos could easily be popped into a more racially astute version of Nylon’s Street Stylin’ section, even if she isn’t snapping for commerce. Veleko documents looks as vocab for cultural communication and q’s of complex post-Aparthied identity. But before calling it classic post-colonial politicin’ v. shallow hipster connoisseurship, consider the parallels between her work and Fruits‘s insight into transformative Japanese textiles and hair color or if ensembles sans baby tees make you sleep better at night, think The Sartorialist– afterall, they are both repped by Danzinger Gallery (Chelsea, NY). Yet despite being represented in Chelsea and by Goodman Gallery (Gauteng, J’burg), Lolo sits under a measure of obscurity in NY’s Chelesea/Soho/LES/Dumbo/Billyburg gallery pentagon. So tsk tsk to all you in-the-dark photophiles and go check out her latest exhibit in Berlin.