PHOTOGRAPHY IN AFRICA: AN
OVERVIEW
Twentieth century photography in Africa encom-
passes a wide variety of genres and practices.
Months after its public invention in 1839, photo-
graphy was introduced to Egypt, spreading quickly
to coastal cities across Africa and more slowly to
rural areas and the interior. The first half of the
twentieth century saw studio photography prac-
ticed by Africans across the continent, although
the prohibition against images made photography
less popular in Islamic North Africa. At the same
time, Europeans documented modern colonialist
life in Africa, and European and American ethno-
graphers traveled the continent in order to photo-
graph, classify, and codify ‘‘tribal’’ Africans. These
images, along with landscape photography and
animal and plant exotica, comprise the genres of
photography practiced mostly by Westerners for
publications like National Geographic and other
journals. By the 1950s and especially after the inde-
pendence of most nations in the 1960s, African
photojournalism flourished along with studio por-
traiture. Some African cultures, like the Yoruba
and the Bini, incorporated photography into cen-
turies-old political or religious rituals. In recent
decades, photography as a contemporary art prac-
tice has also become popular, and photographers
with international art world reputations have
emerged from Morocco to South Africa, although
many African photographers now work from
Paris, London, and New York.
Because of the variety of practices that have
developed at different times in various regions,
many scholars today refer to ‘‘photographies’’ in
Africa, emphasizing photography’s multiple his-
tories. ‘‘Africa’’ itself here constitutes a geographic
definition only, and should not be understood as
indicative of a monolithic cultural identity. Aside
from the violent oppression of European colonial-
ism and subsequent independence of most nations
during the 1960s, which colors the history of all
countries except Ethiopia and Liberia, it is difficult
to generalize about continent-wide similarities in
cultures, politics, histories, traditions, and the
influences of modernity, including photography.
While some characteristics of photography in
Africa certainly bear similarities to photography
everywhere, other aspects may appear recognizably
West African, Egyptian, or Yoruban, but rarely if
ever ‘‘African,’’ in that the phrase implies a consis-
tent trait or style that occurs across the continent.
The history of photography in Africa is a bur-
geoning field, with further research, writing, and
critical evaluation still needed in many areas,
although much new information has come to light
in the past 15 years. Two of South Africa’s best
known photographers, David Goldblatt and Peter
Magubane, published books documenting apart-
heid as early as the 1970s and 1980s. However,
the surge of art world interest in African photo-
graphy and subsequent publications on the topic
can be dated closer to the mid-1990s. Several years
after the 1991 exhibit Africa Explores at the
Museum of African Art in New York anonymously
exhibited Malian photographer Seydou Keı ̈ta’s
striking black-and-white studio portraits. Keı ̈ta
and his compatriot Malick Sidibe ́ were subse-
quently ‘‘discovered’’ by Andre Magnin, who
wrote their monographs. Further solo and group
exhibitions, as well as books, journal articles, and
catalogues, have since provided valuable new infor-
mation about individual African photographers as
well as common photographic practices in many
parts of Africa. In Bamako, Mali, the first biennale
exhibiting African photography,Rencontres de la
Photographie Africaine, was organized in 1994 by
the editor of Revue Noire, Simon Njami. Revue
Noire has since published the work of a number of
African photographers.
Nigerian curator Okwui Enwezor has also been
instrumental in bringing African photography and
art to a wider public. With Salah Hassan and Olu
Oguibe, he foundedNka: A Journal of Contempor-
ary African Artout of Cornell University in 1994.
Enwezor co-curated the landmark exhibition at the
Guggenheim in New York in 1996,In/sight:Afri-
can Photographers, 1940 to the Present, which
showcased studio photographers, contemporary
artists, and the journalist photography ofDrum,a
popular South African magazine. The exhibition
The Short Century(2001–2002), also curated byAFRICA: AN OVERVIEW, PHOTOGRAPHY IN