Isabel S. Wilcox’s blog about Creative Voices in African Arts, Culture, Education Health
This year’s big treat was the presence of France’s Cultural minister Frederic Mitterrand. A big fan of photography he highlighted African photography’s present status: No longer emerging it is now intergrated in the international cultural scene hoe gebruik je milfaholic. Indeed, this year’s Paris Photo is highlighting African photography.
This African photography Biennale is a welcomed event in Bamako, the capital of Mali which has been suffering badly from a severe drop in tourism during the last two years. Following the kidnapping of French reporters in the Maghreb in 2009 , France declared the region unsafe to visit. So what a relief for the Malians to see the flights from Paris full of potential buyers of all kinds of Malian goods. For sure we looked at photographs most of the time but we did shop or let’s just say it was impossible not to buy. Lots of insistent and desperate sellers of fabrics,necklaces, and other goodies. This year there was a specially strong presence from the museum world. Of note Elsie McCabe, director of the Museum for African Art, Elisa LaGamma, curator of African Art at the Metropolitan Museum, Christa Clarke, curator of Arts of Africa and the Americas at the Newark museum, Sandra Phillips, Curator of Photography at the SFMOMA, and Karen Greenberg from the Tate Modern were all attentively studying the photographic displays, meeting artists and taking in Bamako’s cultural scene. (more…)