The Black Photo Album/Look At Me (1997) a slide projection of vintage family photographs collected in Johannesburg and Soweto by Santu Mofokeng was shown at the 1997 Johannesburg Biennial, whose curatorial team was led by Okwui Enwezor. This talk aims at discussing the family album as a discursive, self-reflexive form that allows and connects to personal and political stories of both celebration and trauma. In other words what might it mean for personal family stories of trauma to be on display at an international art event or museum? This talk will position this artwork alongside what Khwezi Gule calls “memory work”, and what Tina Campt calls “listening to photographs” as a throughline and precedent to the artwork of Lebohang Kganye titled Reconstruction of a Family (2016).
Pre-registration is strongly encouraged for in-person attendance.
Guests who are unable to attend in person may stream this event live on the Chazen Museum of Art Facebook page.
Insistent Presence: Contemporary African Art from the Chazen Collection is on display at the Chazen through December 23, 2023.
About Serubiri Moses:
Serubiri Moses is a Ugandan curator and author based in New York City. He currently serves as faculty in Art History at Hunter College, CUNY, and visiting faculty at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. He previously held teaching positions at New York University and the New Centre for Research and Practice (DE/US), Dark Study (US), and Digital Earth Fellowship (NL). As a curator, he has organized exhibitions at museums including MoMA PS1, Long Island City; Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; and the Hessel Museum, Bard College, NY. He serves on the editorial team of e-flux journal.
Photo credit: Marissa Alper (2019)
