"It's not Africa giving to me, I'm giving to Africa"

After 50 years of career, Samuel Fosso, African photographer, recognized for his self-portraits and exhibited in museums around the world, chose with his agent Jean-Marc Patras, who has represented him for 20 years, to exhibit his famous series “Tati », carried out in 1997, at the Parisian gallery Christophe Person. Direct access to the art market and a first for this emblematic series. Samuel Fosso confided in Point Afrique.

Le Point Afrique: Why this choice today to be exhibited in a gallery, in Paris, at Christophe Person, when in the past very few of your works were accessible on the first market?

Samuel Fosso: I had an exhibition in France before, after the Rencontres de Bamako in 1994. Having won the first prize, I had an exhibition the following year, here in Paris. But it’s true that I haven’t been very present in the gallery. I waited. I was afraid of speculation. I also wanted to have different series before exhibiting in galleries. In fact, I was in no hurry to put my photographs on the market and wanted to work first.

Now, after 50 years of career, I find that normal. Last year, I had a nice retrospective at the European House of Photography (MEP) in Paris. Then I was exhibited in Houston and Princeton in the United States, before going to São Paolo in Brazil, then to Panama.

You have been making self-portraits since childhood, ever since you set up your own photo studio in Bangui in 1975. How did you come up with this idea of ??making self-portraits and donning costumes inspired by Western fashion at the time? 1970s?

In fact, at the beginning, it was a personal, family practice. I did it to create a bond between me and my grandmother. She was living in Nigeria and I had to flee the country during the Biafra war. We were very close and she was sad to see me go. By sending him my self-portraits, it was a way to stay in touch. There were no telephones back then! So, when I had the possibility, that I knew that someone was leaving for Nigeria, I entrusted my photos to him. I did this twice a year. For the other self-portraits that I kept, it was a way of telling myself that when I got married and had children, I could show them these photos, of their young father.

I wanted to show my grandmother that I was well behaved and that everything was fine. So I dressed well, so she wouldn’t worry. I was then inspired by American magazines and fashion. I bought the fabrics on the market and then I took them to the tailor and I described to him what I wanted for clothes. It was cheaper! And then I took the pictures.

How did you go from commercial photographer to artist photographer?

This evolution comes from me. I already had ideas and inspirations about what I wanted to do, but I didn’t have the means. After the Rencontres de la photographie de Bamako in 1994, where I received the first prize, a Frenchman who ran a Kodak store in Bangui, and who adored me, said to me: “Samuel, you should never Stop. If you don’t produce anything new, we’ll forget about you. The problem is that you have to have the means to finance this work. In 1995, even without an order, I continued my personal work, while continuing my commercial work in the photo studio.

We come to the “Tati” series…

Indeed, in 1997, I had an order from the Tati stores which wanted to celebrate their 50th anniversary through photography. Two other African photographers, Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keyta were also invited, to set up a photo studio like we did back home, in Africa, but in Barbès, where there was the biggest Tati store. Both did. But I called the project director and told her that my work, the one for which I was discovered as an artist, was to make self-portraits and that I wanted to continue this work, but in color. My project then was to make The Chief (the one who sold Africa to the colonists), then The Pirate and The Liberated Woman of the 1970s.

Through these self-portraits, the transformation and the staging, are you playing the role of an actor?

No, he’s more like a street kid. If he doesn’t have the means, he dresses well. It is a reproduction of a social style, of a character. For the bourgeois woman, I thought how the rich could make the poor suffer. The golfer is a rich character, a little ridiculous. For the businessman, I imagined him with a phone traveling everywhere, who does not often stay with his wife and children.

On the other hand, for The Chief who sold Africa to the colonists, it is a very deep story. When I was very young, I was a bit of a scoundrel and my grandmother used to tell me: you’re not good, you can be given to people. I remembered that in relation to slavery, to the village chiefs who helped the whites, sold them captives. The crimes were not only committed by white people, but also by our own parents who sold us out. In this tragedy, there was a complicity. That’s why I made The Chef Who Sold Africa.

What does Africa bring to your work?

It’s not Africa giving to me, I’m giving to Africa! When I did the “African Spirit” series, it’s in a way a global work, Africa, Caribbean, America, I did it thinking of the crimes committed by the West, the heroes of independence (Léopold Sédar Senghor, Patrice Lumumba…), to the figures of the struggle for civil rights in the United States, (Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King).

I do this work so that the new African generations know the story. I carry the voice of the voiceless. I am not a writer, but thanks to my art, the world can know this history and these people who fought, who were assassinated like Martin Luther King, Patrice Lumumba. Along with my self-portraits, they are exhibited in museums, and it tells what they have done for us. That’s why I made “African Spirit” to leave the memory and for the new generation to know this story. That’s what I gave Africa, it didn’t give me.

What advice would you give to a young photographer?

I always advise not to get discouraged. Myself before being an artist photographer, I worked 25 years as a studio photographer. This work that you want to do, you have to do it and never get discouraged. It is patience. You can’t become famous overnight. It takes endurance and perseverance. One day the door will open. It’s always long term. That’s what happened to me. But I’m still working and it’s better to be famous in old age than in youth.

* Galerie Christophe Person, “Tati” by Samuel Fosso, on view at 39, rue des Blancs-Manteaux, 75004 Paris, until June 17.