PROJECT POST-COLONIAL ETHNOGRAPHY
Primitive typologies
Exercise 4.9
Browse the catalogue Tribal Portraits: Vintage and Contemporary Photographs from the African Continent, Bernard J Shapero Rare Books. Core resources: TribalPortraits.pdf
Write a brief reflective commentary in your learning log. (Open College of the Arts, 2014:96)
Tribal Portraits Vintage and contemporary photographs from the African continent, a catalogue from a sale of photographs in 2008 by Bernard J Shapero; the images were taken from 1856 to 2008 and the text states that is presents the images as art.
The cover image is full of promise, offering a different perspective. However from that starting point most of the images are stereotypical portraits of African people. Mostly the women are presented a full frontals, naked from at least the waist up and the images ae predominantly women. Vincenti’s late 19th century images of men are one of the few exceptions. I was surprised to see Lehnert and Landrock African women photographed in obvious western style poses, but accept that these have their place in the history of tribal photography.
Its unfortunate that the images aren’t presented chronologically, as there is no progression or logic in the presentation. Contemporary photographers Malick Sidibe and Seydou Keita present a welcome relief to the stereotypical earlier photographs; but to call this a mixture of contemporary and historical tribal photography is misleading as most of the images are from 1856 to the 1950s and there are only a handful of 21st century images such as Graff’s and comparatively few late 20th century images.
I also take issue with some of the captions such as item 9 Portrait study billed as an “unusual informal grouping” when in fact the women are they are sitting on western chairs and have obviously been arranged to a degree.
My favourite image is item 18 by Riefenstahl, the Nuba Dancers of Kau (1975); it is full of life and skilfully captures a vibrant and realistic picture, the nudity appears as natural as obviously was, there is context and it is unposed. Ricciardi’s images of the late 1960s in Kenya also have welcome life to them.
My conclusions, that there is obvious documentary value in the collection but we could learn more easily from the catalogue if the images were present chronologically or by region or even with more context; if presented in the former way we would at least be able to ascertain if there has been any progression in the photography. I guess the motivation was simply to sell the images and I should not wish for anything beyond that; it is however a good source of tribal photographs.
References:
Open College of the Arts (2014) Photography 2: Documentary-Fact and Fiction (Course Manual). Barnsley: Open College of the Arts.
Shapero, B. J. (2008) ‘TribalPortraits.pdf’ At: https://www.oca-student.com/sites/default/files/TribalPortraits.pdf
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Photography 2: Documentary 