chic, elegant and easy to recognize’’ (Bonetti and
Schlinkert 2004, 97).
Fosso began making self-portraits after shop
hours, originally to send to his grandmother in
Nigeria to show he was doing well in his new life;
but the impetus to take his own picture became a
pleasure in itself. Fosso says: ‘‘It was fun...It was
beautiful. I was liberated from the past, from the
suffering’’ (Bonetti and Schlinkert 2004, 33). A
teenager impressed by 1970s youth culture im-
ported from the West, Fosso had a local tailor sew
fashionable bell-bottoms and tight shirts from pic-
tures on record covers like the ones by African rock
star Prince Nico Mbarga. As Manthia Diawara has
noted, such clothing was a sign of youthful rebellion
against traditional society, a way of both dissolving
ethnic friction and avoiding the strictures of elders.
Fosso’s black-and-white self-portraits androgy-
nously celebrate the young man’s handsome and
sexy persona; he mimics rock stars and 1970s dan-
dies. He kept these photographs to himself; public
dissemination of certain photographs which border
on the erotic, with Fosso posing gracefully in white
underwear or wearing nothing but a tight, striped
swimsuit and rubber kitchen gloves, could have
gotten him into trouble.
Formally, many of Fosso’s early black-and-white
self-portraits consistently include a checkerboard or
diamond-patterned floor, a low, patterned stage
running the length of the studio horizon line, and
a backdrop, sometimes with patterned cloth cur-
tains. Often the backs of studio lights appear at
the sides of the photograph, glamorously framing
the subject. Some photographs include Fosso with a
friend dressed the same as he. In an appropriation
of advertising or record cover aesthetics, Fosso also
added text in the form of adhesive letters to some of
his photographs, using proverbs that he copied
from books such as ‘‘Life is liberty.’’
Fosso began to gain international fame after his
self-portraits were exhibited in the first photogra-
phy biennale in Bamako in 1994,Rencontres de la
Photographie Africaine. Two years later his works
were included in the landmark African photogra-
phy exhibition In/sight: African Photographers,
1940 to the Presentat the Guggenheim Museum
in New York. After Fosso entered the international
art world, his style changed. Fosso was commis-
sioned to shoot a series for the Parisian department
store Magasins Tati, associated with Africa
because it traditionally served the immigrant Alger-
ian community. For this work, Fosso had access to
different props and costumes, and worked with the
help of assistants. The color photographs from this
series continue Fosso’s investigation into different
identities, including a lifeguard, an African chief, a
‘‘liberated American woman,’’ and a golf player.
The roles Fosso plays are more clearly designated
than in his earlier self-portraits, although ambigu-
ity remains in the strangeness of the identities
Fosso chose. In a more serious vein, the recent
black-and-white series,Me ́moire d’un ami(2000),
refers to the murder of a good friend by the police
just outside of Fosso’s studio. Metaphorical mem-
orials, these self-portraits depict uneasiness, anxi-
ety, and vulnerability.
ALLISONMOORESeealso:Keı ̈ta, Seydou; Photography in Africa: An
Overview; Photography in Africa: Central and West;
PortraitureBiography
Born in Kumba, Cameroon, 1962. Apprenticed to studio
photographer in Bangui, Central African Republic in- Opened own studio in September, 1975. Received
‘‘Afrique en creation’’ Award in 1995; ‘‘DAK’ART’’
first prize for photography in 2000; Prince Claus
Award of the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Devel-
opment, The Hague in 2001. Lives in Bangui, Central
African Republic. Married with children, Fosso con-
tinues to live in Bangui while exhibiting internationally.
Individual Exhibitions
1995 Centre national de la photographie, Paris
1996 Galerie du The ́aˆ tre,Gap, Hautes Alpes, France
1997 Samuel Fosso. Photographs, greengrassi, London
1999 Galerie Maı ̈Ollivier, Paris, France
2003 Samuel Fosso Autorretratos, ‘‘PhotoEspan ̃a 2003. Nos
Otros,’’ Madrid, Spain
2003 Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
2004 Sameul Fosso, Centro Internazionale di Fotografia
Scavi Scaligeri, Verona, RomeGroup Exhibitions
1994 Autoportaits, ‘‘Premie`res Rencontres de la Photogra-
phie Africaine,’’ Bamako, Mali
1995 Photographes Africains, FNAC, Forum des Halles,
Paris
1995 Festival Africa 95, Photographers’ Gallery, London
1996 In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New
York
1997 Studio Photo. 50 ans des Magasins Tati, Paris
1998 L’Afrique par elle-meˆme, Maison Europe ́enne de la
Photographie, Paris
1999 Africa by Africa: a Photographic View, Barbican Art
Gallery, London
2000 ‘‘DAK’ART, Exposition Internationale d’Art Con-
temporain Africain,’’ Dakar, Senegal
Portrait Afrika: Photographische Positionen eines
Jahrhunderts, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, BerlinFOSSO, SAMUEL