Samuel Fosso is a contemporary Cameroonian photographer who uses himself as both the subject and the model for all of his photographs. A large portion of his photographs are self-portraits which represent various cultural clichés of either Americanism exported around the world, or parodies of popular culture and its accoutrements. Most of his photographs are black and white, which makes the few that have been produced in color all the more glaring in their commentary on their subject. His two most famous series, African Spirits and Autoportraits, represent political and cultural commentary on the modern world, particularly as portrayed through the media. African Spirits portrays a collection of black and white images of well-known historical figures and celebrities, including Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, and Haïlé Sélassié, among others, all modelled by Fosso in a wide variety of costumes. His other famous series Autoportraits, also almost entirely black and white, features Fosso posing in an endless array of campy, stylized caricatures of popular fashion iconography. The crisp resolution of the prints, as well as the garish outfits, satirize different fashion trends through recent history and the cult of celebrity surrounding Hollywood and the fashion industry.
The series African Spirits displays Fosso’s views on the African political landscape and cultural Africanism in general, as well as examining a cross-section of the leadership Africans, both within Africa and in the wider diaspora, chose over the last half-century. Interestingly, a great many of the photographs of the series depict African-American figures that do not appear to have any connection with Africa, and the viewer would not assume they imparted any great impact on the lives of Africans within Africa (Patras, 2008). The series, therefore, seems to convey a message of Pan-Africanism throughout the globe, that the actions and achievement of promoting equality and social justice by a single, apparently isolated individual or group in one part the world, have repercussions and benefits for all others everywhere else. Likewise, the ignominy and humiliation of one, or one group, affects all as well. Thus, several of the images in this series show their subject in the poses for which they gained their fame. The image of Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, shows him in the act of speaking before a lectern bristling with microphones. Another portrays Olympian Tommie Smith in the act of raising his black-gloved fist in the Black Power salute which got him and one of his teammates banned from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics (Sheehan, 1968). The viewer can glean much useful information about Fosso’s message by comparing those images which show the subject in action with those which do not. The image of Malcom X, who presumably did as much fiery speaking as Martin Luther King, Jr., and as a result produced an equally profound effect, is conversely portrayed in a passive attitude, with the only real identifying feature in the photograph to give the viewer a clue as to his identity being the crescent-and-star ring on his finger. Since all of the faces in the series are Fosso’s, the viewer must rely solely on these theatrical properties and costume gimmicks to ascertain the identity of the subject. Perhaps this interpretation of Malcom X is designed to tell us that Fosso does not in fact believe that Malcolm X created as much of an effect, or the right sort of effect, as Martin Luther King, Jr. Another peculiar picture shows Mohammed Ali as a version of St. Sebastian; only his boxing short and shoes give any intimation of the subject’s identity (Jarvis, 2011). The representation shows Ali with his arms tied behind him, riddled with arrows, and casting his martyred gaze heavenward in the style of such famous paintings by Pietro Perugino, Bellini, and El Greco, among others (Web Gallery of Art, El Greco). Fosso’s apparent emphasis on the controversy surrounding Ali’s personal life and the criticism he suffered as a result of his statements and actions outside the ring, which eclipsed his achievements as a boxer, produces a marvellous testimonial to Fosso’s perception of Ali’s contribution to the African-American civil rights movement. These comparisons between the different photographs of the series, in light of the title African Spirits, provides a fascinating range of interpretations of both Fosso’s meaning behind the images and the wider global cultural implications for the African diaspora upon which he is commenting.
While each photograph clearly represents a snapshot of one stereotype within the pulp media world or an individual fashion trend from the recent past, the entire series portrays a stereotype of the world as the media would have us see it; as with the popular media, Fosso’s work contains no realism, no historical documentary, and no “ordinary” people. Even in the cases of the famous people depicted in African Spirits, Fosso relies on the viewer already recognizing these people and understanding their historical significance. The images themselves do not include any historical information about them, and many are unrecognizable to viewers who do not already know whom they are supposed to represent. In spite of the fact that Fosso claims that “I started taking self-portraits simply to use up spare film The idea was to send some pictures to my mother in Nigeria, to show her I was all right (Henley, 2011),” the photographs that comprise Autoportraits contain no personal relation to the artist’s personal life at all. They do not show his home, his community environment, his friends, or his place of work. A mother looking at these images would discover nothing particularly germane to the question of whether her son was “all right;” she would not learn where he lived, how he spent his time, or how well he was succeeding in his profession. Obviously, Fosso intentionally keeps this information secret. The viewer of Autoportraits gains no insights at all about the artist’s life, about Africa or the particular African city or nation in which he lives, or any other personal detail of his family life or daily routine. In addition, Fosso states that “I have no pictures from my childhood . . .’’ as an explanation for why he photographs himself so much. His body of work, however, can hardly serve to remedy that fact, since his work does nothing to document his life as an adult (Maestra, 2009). We can almost certainly safely assume that Fosso does not flounce around the streets of Bangui, his home city in the Central African Republic, dressed in the clothes that adorn the photographs in this series (Purdy Hicks Gallery).
We can interpret the disparity between Samuel Fosso’s statements about his motives for photographing himself so exclusively and the material contained in his work as a deliberate comment on the content of the images he produces. Fosso does not intend his viewer to gain any personal information about him or his interior world; instead, Fosso offers himself as a caricature of the faces and figures portrayed so widely in the popular media. The images of Fosso, facetiously labelled “self-portraits,” rather provide a parody of the poses, faces, costumes, and personalities normally displayed in magazines, films, and on television, showing them up to be the ridiculous distortions of human life that they really are. Viewing these hilarious images teaches the audience to disdain the pap served up by the media circus, and whets the intellectual appetite for cold, hard reality in its place.
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