AUTOPORTRAIT is the first comprehensive survey of Samuel Fosso's multifaceted oeuvre. Since the mid-1970s, the artist has focused on self-portraiture and performance, envisioning variations of identity in the postcolonial era. From Fosso's early self-portraits in black-and-white from the 1970s to his recent, continually inventive exercises in self-presentation, highlights include the vibrant series "Tati" (1997), in which he playfully inhabits African and African American characters and archetypes; and the magisterial portraits of "African Spirits" (2008), where he poses as icons of the pan-African liberation and Civil Rights movements, such as Angela Davis, Martin Luther King, Jr., Patrice Lumumba and Nelson Mandela.This landmark monograph demonstrates Fosso's unique departure from the traditions of West African studio photography, established in the 1950s and '60s by modern masters Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé. By charting his conceptual practice of self-portraiture, and sustained engagement with notions of sexuality, gender and self-representation, this book reveals an unprecedented photographic project-one that consistently reflects themes in global visual culture, and covers the range of expressive applications of photography.Taking pictures is for me a way of liberating myself from the suffering of childhood, from illness, war, everything. I always believed that my life would be pushed aside by other people's, but photography has given me a second life. It's made all lives possible for me. - Samuel Fosso

Samuel Fosso: Autoportrait

Arts & Photography

Smith, Terry

Bajac, Quentin

Patras, Jean-Marc

Okeke-Agulu, Chika

Onabanjo, Oluremi

Photography & Video

Steidl/The Walther Collection, New York

Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography surveys the expansive field of vernacular photography, the vast archive of utilitarian images created for bureaucratic structures, commercial usage and personal commemoration (as opposed to aesthetic purposes). As a crucial extension of its ongoing investigation of vernacular photography, the Walther Collection has collaborated with key scholars and critical thinkers in the history of photography, women’s studies, queer theory, Africana studies and curatorial practice to interrogate vernacular’s theoretical limits, as well as to conduct case studies of a striking array of objects and images, many from the collection’s holdings. From identification portraits of California migrant workers, physique photographs that circulated underground in queer communities, to one-of-a-kind commemorative military albums from Louisiana to Vietnam, these richly illustrated essays treat a breadth of material formats, social uses and shared communities, offering new ways to consider photography in relation to our political affiliations, personal agency and daily rituals. Imagining Everyday Life evolved from a two-day symposium at Columbia University in October 2018―a collaboration between the Walther Collection, Barnard’s Center for Research on Women and the Center for the Study of Social Difference at Columbia University. This publication unfolds in four parts: Why Vernacular Photography? The Limits and Possibilities of A Field; Troubling Portraiture: Photographic Portraits and The Shadow Archive; Performance and Transformation: Photographic (Re)visions of Subjectivity; and Space, Materiality and the Social Worlds of the Photograph. Texts by Ariella Azoulay, Geoffrey Batchen, Ali Behdad, Elspeth Brown, Clément Chéroux, Lily Cho, Nicole Fleetwood, Sophie Hackett, Patricia Hayes, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Thy Phu, Leigh Raiford, Shawn Michelle Smith, Drew Thompson, Laura Wexler, and Deborah Willis.

Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography

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Books by Steidl/The Walther Collection, New York