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PIETER HUGO

 

Abdullahi Mohammed with Mainasara. Ogere-Remo, Nigeria. 2007, colour photograph/Museum Quality Print, paper size 6 x 6 inches /15.24 x 15.25 cm., hand signed by the artist, 2007 (printed 2017)

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These photographs came about after a friend emailed me an image taken on a cellphone through a car window in Lagos, Nigeria, which depicted a group of men walking down the street with a hyena in chains. A few days later, I saw the image reproduced in a South African newspaper with the caption 'The Streets of Lagos.' Nigerian newspapers reported that these men were bank robbers, bodyguards, drug dealers, debt collectors. Myths surrounded them. The image captivated me. Through a journalist friend I eventually tracked down a Nigerian reporter, who said that he knew the 'Gadawan Kura' as they are known in Hausa (a rough translation: 'hyena handlers/guides').
A few weeks later in Abuja, I found them living on the periphery of the city in a shantytown–a group of men, a little girl, three hyenas, four monkeys and a few rock pythons. It turned out that they were a group of itinerant minstrels, performers, who used the animals to entertain crowds and sell traditional medicines. The animal handlers were all related to each other and were practicing a tradition passed down from generation to generation.
Pieter Hugo

Rock, Cape Town, c-print, paper size 37 x 46 cm. /14.6 x 18.1 inches, image size 27 x 36 cm. /10.6 x 14.2 inches, edition 60, signed and numbered, 2015

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image (without white border)

 

In recent years Hugo has turned his eye on cramped townships, contested farmlands and abandoned mining areas; psychologically charged still lifes in people's homes; sites of political significance; drifters and the homeless; his pregnant wife, and his daughter moments after her birth; the domestic servants who have worked for the Hugo family over three generations. The work alternates between intimate and public spaces, with particular emphasis on the growing disparity between rich and poor, and reveals Hugo's deeply conflicted feelings about his home. It confronts complex issues of colonisation, racial diversity and economic disparity.

 

Luis Matanisa, Capetown, 2013

Luis Matanisa, Capetown, 2013

Luis Matanisa, Capetown, digital C-print, paper size 20 x 24 inches /50.8 x 61 cm., image size 15 x 19 15/16 inches /38.1 x 50.5 cm., edition 20, signed and numbered, 2013

$ 3500,-

 

 

Nollywood, c-print, 20 x 20 cm. /7.9 x 7.9 inches, edition 150, signed and numbered, 2008

(including artists' book)

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