I first saw Pieter Hugo’s work in Mass Appeal and was blow away which happens very rarely for me. Hugo’s work focuses on contemporary Africa. His photographs of Nigerian entertainers-cum-debt-collectors known for their pet hyenas are stunning. On top of that the locals think there all witches.
The Hyena Men series was inspired by a photograph supposedly made by a mobile network employee’s cell phone.
From the The Hyena and Other Men book description on Amazon: Many myths surround the “Hyena Men” who haunt the peripheries of Nigeria’s cities. Accompanied by hyenas, rock pythons and baboons, these men earn a living by performing before crowds and selling traditional medicines. Pieter Hugo’s extraordinary portraits of their liminal existence reveal an uncanny world of complex, codependent relationships, where familiar distinctions between dominance and submission, wildness and domesticity, tradition and modernity are constantly subverted.
MoMA’s curator of photography John Szarkowski: “A beginning photographer hopes to learn to use the medium to describe the truth. The intelligent journeyman has learned that there is not enough film to do that.”
From pieterhugo.com: Pieter Hugo was born in 1976 in Johannesburg and grew up in Cape Town, where he continues to live. His survey exhibition, This Must Be the Place, opened at the Fotomuseum Den Haag and travelled to the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2012; the exhibition continues to tour. Solo shows have also taken place at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2010); Le Chateau d’Eau in Toulouse, France (2010); the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney (2009), and Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam (2008). Group exhibitions include The Global Contemporary: Art worlds after 1989 at ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (2011); The Endless Renaissance, Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida (2009); Street & Studio: An urban history of photography at Tate Modern, London (2008); An Atlas of Events at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2007);and the 27th São Paulo Bienal (2006). He was titled the Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art in 2007. In 2008 Hugo was the winner of the KLM Paul Huf Award and the Arles Discovery Award at the Rencontres d’Arles Photography Festival in France. He won the Seydou Keita Award at the 9th Rencontres de Bamako African Photography Biennial, Mali, in 2011, and was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse photography prize 2012.
@officialdon
Check out the slideshow below.
