THE V&A: PIETER HUGO
Last Monday, I went to the V&A museum to squeeze three exhibitions into one evening. Yohji Yamamoto was distinctly underwhelming and The Cult of Beauty was dense yet still enjoyable, reminding me why I love William Morris but the one that really held my attention was Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography. For me, Pieter Hugo, Mikhael Subotzky and David Goldblatt really stood out. Pieter Hugo is one of my favourite photographers; I first came across his work when I bought Lagos Shake: A Tony Allen Chop Up. The Album cover features one of the photographs from his ‘The Hyena Men’ series. The power in his images are immense and impossible to forget. The provocative subject matter of his photographs draw not only from his home in Cape Town where he picked up his first camera aged 10, but also features cultural aspects of other African countries such as Nigeria’s Nollywood, Ghana’s wild honey collectors and sites of mass slaughter in Rwanda. Generally, he is drawn, he says, to ‘that which we do not want to look at’ yet ironically you can’t help but do exactly that. His work is so interesting and he does a better job at describing it so have a look at his website: http://www.pieterhugo.com/
Here are some of my favorite images:
FROM THE HYENA MEN
FROM NOLLYWOOD
FROM WILD HONEY COLLECTORS
FROM MESSINA/MUSINA
There is also an incredible photograph of a group of young Xhosa men in tweeds, the customary dress for initiates, after circumcision - looks like a fantastic add for Burberry. I wish i could find it!
Anyway, Hugo also directed the video for ‘Control’, a “darkwave township house” cover of the Joy Division classic She’s Lost Control by South African producer/DJ Spoek Mathamboa. I wanted the song to be better but the video’s pretty good.
I’ve posted it below.
