Life and Afterlife

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In Benin

A new chapter in the history of African and world photography.

Photographs by Benoît Adjovi, Bouraïma Akodji, Jean Agbétagbo, Joseph Moïse Agbodjelou, Léon Ayékoni, Christophe Mahoukpé, Sébastien Méhinto aka Pigeon, Edouard Méhomé, Camille Tchawlasso, with texts by Okwui Enwezor, Alex van Gelder

Editions:

Price: USD$59.95

600 points

Specifications

Hardback
English
290 x 250 mm, 11 3/8 x 9 7/8 in
136 pp
ISBN-13: 9780714845135
ISBN-10: 0714845132
80 Duotone Images

Overview

A collection of never-before-seen photographs, made in Benin, West Africa, in the 1960s and 1970s, whose discovery opens a new chapter in the history of African and world photography
Universal moments - births and weddings, communions and courtships - lie alongside startling images of voodoo priestesses and juju men, thieves and assassins, prostitutes and pimps, and an extraordinary sequence of death-bed portraits
In this deeply mystical culture (voodoo is Benin's national religion), photography played a fascinating role both in people's lives and in their afterlives
The photographs are analysed by poet and curator Okwui Enwezor, one of the world's great authorities on 20th-century African culture

In The Press

'Remarkable' ( Sunday Telegraph magazine)

'Fascinating' (Amateur Photographer)

About the author(s)

Okwui Enwezor is a poet, a critic and the curator of many influential exhibitions including Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany, in 2002. He is Visiting Professor at the Universities of Columbia, Pittsburgh, and Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Alex van Gelder is an artist, a poet and a collector of African art, who has, since 2000, discovered and conserved the work of a number of photographers active in Benin during the post-war period.