Joshua Chuang

Recent Histories: Contemporary African Photography and Video Art from The Walther Collection unites the perspectives of 14 contemporary artists of African descent, who investigate social identity, questions of belonging and an array of sociopolitical concerns--including migration, lineage, the legacies of colonialism and Calvinism and local custom--as well as personal experiences in Africa and the African diaspora. By highlighting specific creative approaches and studying the sites and collective platforms that enable these practices, this book examines the critical mass that has gathered across generations of African image-makers and lens-based artists. In accentuating different perspectives within this generation and considering the infrastructures that often link them, Recent Histories provides a point of entry to engage critically with current practices, and opens up considerations about how to conceptualize the frameworks of contemporary African photography and video art. Recent Histories features the work of Edson Chagas, Mimi Cherono Ng'ok, Andrew Esiebo, Em'kal Eyongakpa, Fran ois- Xavier Gbr , Simon Gush, D lio Jasse, Lebohang Kganye, Sabelo Mlangeni, Mame-Diarra Niang, Dawit L. Petros, Zina Saro-Wiwa, Thabiso Sekgala and Michael Tsegaye.

In 1988 Santu Mofokeng (born 1956) joined the staff of the African Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand as a documentary photographer and researcher. In this position, he began to record the lives of tenant laborers in the unremarkable township of Bloemhof, an agricultural town in Northern South Africa. Over the next several years, Mofokeng amassed what could be considered the core of his larger body of work: a set of interconnected photo-essays centering on the Maine family, with whom he stayed. Highly distilled yet immersive, Books Two through Four of the series "Santu Mofokeng: Stories" form a loose trilogy that describes how the residents of Bloemhof unwind, bury one of their own and gather together on one of the most consequential days in South African history.

Many photographers have been intrigued with the baffling distortions—both subtle and disquieting—that can occur when the camera “captures” the real world. Not always intentional, some images dazzle with impossible juxtapositions or disorienting spatial orders, while others confound the viewer’s belief in the documentary promise of photography. Drawn from the highly respected collection of Allan Chasanoff, the photographs in this intriguing volume confront viewers with the challenge of doubt and confusion in so-called “straight” pictures. Featured are perceptually provocative images by Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Clarence John Laughlin, Imogen Cunningham, and Lee Friedlander, among others. The book’s essays raise awareness of the interpretive nature of the lens and the interpolative nature of the medium. Distributed for the Yale University Art GalleryExhibition Schedule:Yale University Art Gallery (October 7, 2008 – January 4, 2009)