Steidl recently published a book compiling three years of research by Artur Walther into African photography. The conversation joins the representation inherited from an ethnographic tradition with local contributions, combining 19th century anthropological studies with older and contemporary social reporting. The portrait plays a major role. One of the central pieces of this historical selection is Santu Mofokeng’s The Black Photo Album, along with a large sampling of contemporary photographers, Samuel Fosso’s portraits with ironic captions, Pieter Hugo’s digitally colored faces, Guy Tilim’s portraits of the Mai Mai militia in the DRC, Zanale Muholi’s portraits of the South African gay community, and David Goldblatt’s involuntarily ethnographic gallery.
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