Photo Hughes Debois, Courtesy www.photoquai.fr
Crossed Portraits
By Joseph Gergel
Deciding how to exhibit non-western photography to a Western audience is always a tricky matter. Because photography in Africa was rooted in a colonialist kind of exploitation, there is always the tendency to fall back on an exercise of cultural othering. The exhibition "Portraits Croisés", part of the 2nd Biennale des Images du Monde at the Musee Quai Branly but exhibited in the African art wing of the Louvre, embraces this process of othering head-on. The exhibition consists of photographic portraits of Africans paired with traditional African sculpture. The choice of inclusion is purely aesthetic, looking at how the two mediums visually resemble each other. Its curatorial premise echoes that of the seminal exhibition "Primitivism" at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1950's. "Primitivism" juxtaposed Western modern art with African tribal objects. While "Primitivism" was important for being an early attempt at exploring African art in a modern context, it garnered criticism for ignoring the ritual function of the sculptures. In "Portraits Croisés" there is the same dilemma. By pairing the objects only with concern to its form, it compares two very different periods of African visual culture. But while the exhibition lends itself to criticism of its lack of political correctness, it succeeds by reactivating the objects as a pair, blending personal and collective cultural history. It is a poetic exercise, evoking an emotional rather than informative response.
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