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Made
You Look: Dandyism and Black Masculinity
15 Jul - 25 Sep 2016
The Photographers’
Gallery presents Made You Look: Dandyism and Black Masculinity, a
group exhibition exploring the identity of the black dandy as
performed in studio and street photographs from London to New York to
Bamako.
In the early 21st
century, black men are influential trendsetters in fashion, music and
culture. This increased prominence however, has not had an impact on
the state of high vulnerability still experienced by black men - as
illustrated by disproportionate rates of incarceration the UK and
USA. Dandyism, with its emphasis on dress and flamboyance, is
examined as radical personal politics and a provocative counter to
stereotypical representations and physical objectification of black
masculinity. This exhibition seeks to consciously problematise ideas
of a male identity through dress and deportment that is arresting,
tantalising, louche, camp and gloriously assertive.
Social and gender
norms are negotiated in the studio space where the roots of the dandy
are traced back to 1904 in a rare series of outdoor studio prints
from The Larry Dunstan Archive. Thought to be taken in Senegal, the
images depict young men asserting a powerful personal presence
through stylish dress. In Malick Sidibé’s(1936-2016, Mali)
commercial studio, men were encouraged to model in animated poses
while playfully engaging with personal props, including motorbikes
and boxing gloves.
The studio as a site
of bold experimentation and fantastical expression is explored in the
works of Samuel Fosso (b. 1962, Cameroon) and Hassan Hajjaj (b. 1961,
Morocco).Fosso’s 1970s self-portraits picture the artist in varying
guises, assuming imagined black males identities. Hajjaj’s images,
produced in collaboration with his subjects, feature men meticulously
dressed in vivid African prints and photographed against bright
backgrounds of clashing colours. The results are placed in frames
handmade from food and drinks packaging, emphasising craftsmanship
and the individual styling of each sitter.
A collection of
street photographs celebrates the ordinary elegance of the dandy and
his ability to transform everyday attire into ostentatious style
statements. In his series the Black House (1973 - 1976), Colin Jones
(b. 1936, U.K)captured the careful and discreetly extravagant styling
of young men living in an Islington Housing Project. Liz Johnson
Artur (b. 1964, Sofia) presents her work from the last thirty years
of photographing on the streets of London, Detroit and Kingston,
Jamaica, while Jeffrey Henson Scales (b. 1954, USA)covers asimilar
period inNew York.
Complex notions of
gender and sexuality are visited in Isaac Julien's (b. 1960, UK)
still shots from the set of his pivotal movie Looking for Langston
(1989). Blending archival and scripted scenes, the film portrays
black gay desire during the liberal explosion of the Harlem
Renaissance in the 1920s. Gender is further explored in the context
of contemporary South Africa with work by Kristin-Lee Moolman’s
(b.1986, South Africa). Tapping into youth and township culture her
images feature androgynous characters that reject labels and oppose
stereotypes.
The exhibition is
curated by writer and broadcaster Ekow Eshun
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Dressing
to express
Ranging from New
York to Soweto, a new exhibition shows the power of clothes to
challenge assumptions about race, class and gender
Fleur Macdonald |
July 29th 2016
In 1975 a teenage
photographer called Samuel Fosso opened his own studio in Bangui, in
the Central African Republic. During the day he would photograph
clients; at night he would use up the unexposed rolls of film, taking
photos of himself in different costumes and poses, sending some to
his mother in Nigeria to reassure her that he was alright.
In one self-portrait
he poses in an outfit that could have come out of David Bowie’s
wardrobe: platform shoes, football socks and white fringed shorts. It
was a provocative way to dress in a country then under the tyrannical
rule of Jean-Bédel Bokassa. In 1979, the dictator reportedly
sanctioned the execution of 100 schoolchildren for not wearing the
correct school uniform.
“Dandyism”, said
Roland Barthes, “is condemned to be radical or not exist at all.”
The dandies featured in “Made You Look”, an exhibition at the
Photographers’ Gallery in Soho, London, range from fops wearing
pearls and flares in modern-day Soweto to Senegalese men in bowties
and bowlers at the beginning of the 20th century. All sport the same
mixture of pride and insouciance.
As Ekow Eshun, the
show’s curator, explains, certain black men invest a lot in how
they look, dress and carry themselves: “not purely for superficial
reasons but as a kind of personal politics, as a way of defining an
identity against a white gaze, against a society that can often
caricature them, ‘other’ them as a brute, and define them by the
colour of their skin rather than the texture of their inner lives.”
The exhibition is
definitely on trend. “Dandy Lion” at the Museum of the African
Diaspora in San Francisco takes a similar premise, while “2026”,
a futuristic exploration of black masculinity and fashion, has just
opened at London’s Somerset House.
It’s not a
coincidence that people are interested in these themes now, Eshun
tells me. “Some of the biggest cultural figures on the planet are
black men but at the same time black men are pretty vulnerable…You
just have to look at the Black Lives Matter [campaign].” He is
fascinated by how black men negotiate these spaces between “high
visibility” and “high vulnerability”.
“Made You Look”
celebrates men who have used fashion to question assumptions about
race, class, gender and sexuality. Encompassing North America,
Britain and Africa, over two centuries of intense social and
political upheaval, this exhibition cannot possibly represent the
full spectrum of black dandyism. But perhaps that’s the point.
Made You Look:
Dandyism and Black Masculinity Photographers’ Gallery until
September 25th 2016
Fleur Macdonald is
features editor of TRUE Africa, a website that looks at culture,
music, sport and politics from an African perspective
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Samuel Fosso, “Self
Portrait from ‘70’s Lifestyle” (1973–1977)
A young man trying
on different identities until one fits, Fosso here possesses a
fragile confidence. His work seems all the more precious given his
home in Bangui was looted in 2014. Luckily many of his prints and
negatives were found, littered on the streets.
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Malick Sidibé, “Au
cours d’une soirée (During a party: the poses)” (1964)
Sibidé knows how to
photograph a dance move. He took photos of people having fun, letting
loose and being young. He captured the optimism and pride of a young
nation (Mali had recently gained independence from France), and its
citizens’ assertion of self-identity. Eshun explains: “This young
guy has gone to the studio and has chosen to dress the way he
dresses, to represent himself how he wants to look. It’s a move
away from colonial-era photography of African people as
anthropological subjects. He wants to be seen on his own terms, in
his own light, in his own clothes…”
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Kristen Lee-Moolman,
“Wayne Swart” (2015)
The South African
photographer references Fosso in her playful portraits of young men
from Soweto. They are “quite louche and quite camp,” Eshun says,
pointing out that they echo gender-fluid role-models from America,
like the rapper Young Thug or Will Smith’s son Jaden, who wears a
skirt. “Young men in influential positions are consciously
insisting on a blurring of [gender] boundaries. A couple of years
ago, it would have put them in a very vulnerable position.”
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Liz Johnson-Artur,
“Kingston” (1991)
This young man
confidently “owns” the camera, challenging the viewer to accept
his authority. “He carries himself with such self-assertion, such
inner belief that he [rises above] his circumstances” says Eshun.
“As a black man you spent a lot of your life being told ‘you are
this’ or ‘you should be that’ and so to arrive at a place where
you can say ‘this is who I am’ is very powerful.”
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Jeffrey
Henson-Scales, “Young man in plaid” (1991)
This photo of a
young man waiting in a doorway in New York City, his chest sticking
out, is captivating. You can’t help but wonder who or what he’s
waiting for. His louche, subversive dress is deliberately
reminiscent, says Eshun, of historical dandies like Lord Byron or
Oscar Wilde. And that is the strength of this exhibition: while it is
very much about race, it’s also a reminder that true dandyism
transcends race, as well as time and place, age, sex and background.
The clothes we wear are an outward expression of our personality, a
clue to what lies beneath, and a warning not to define us by
something as arbitrary as skin colour.
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