Artist Samuel Fosso joins Dr. Mark Sealy, Director of Autograph, London, for a conversation about photography and self-presentation in conjunction with the Menil's exhibition "Samuel Fosso: African Spirits," and the 2022 FotoFest Biennial exhibition, "African Cosmologies Redux." Completed in 2008, Fosso's African Spirits series consists of fourteen large gelatin silver prints in which the artist portrays himself as prominent figures from 20th-century Black liberation movements. Sealy originally selected this series by Fosso to include in the 2020 FotoFest Biennial program African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the Other.
Since 1991, Dr. Mark Sealy OBE has been the director of London-based photographic arts institution Autograph ABP. He has published numerous essays and artist monographs, publications, curated exhibitions, and commissioned photographers and filmmakers worldwide, including the critically acclaimed exhibition "Human Rights Human Wrongs" at Ryerson Image Centre in Toronto (2013) and in London (2015). He has written for international photography journals, including "Foam Magazine," "Aperture," "Creative Camera," and "Next Level." His most recent books, "Decolonising the Camera: Photography in Racial Time," 2019 and "Photography: Race, Rights, and Representation," 2022, explore the work of international Black photographers through artist interviews and in-depth analysis of their visual practices. Sealy is also currently a Professor of Photography Rights and Representation at the University of the Arts London - London College of Communication, affiliated with the Photography Archive and Research Centre.
The "Artist Talk" series is supported by a gift from the Cockrell Family Fund.
Glasstire is the media sponsor of Artist Talk: Samuel Fosso in conversation with Mark Sealy.
Public Program of The Menil Collection, Houston, TX. October 6, 2022.
