Seydou Keita + Nontsikelelo Veleko = FASHION. Focus. The left eye takes in Bamakois in black and white circa post-independence Mali and the right wanders through the vibrant colors and temperaments of Johannesburg youth as they glare with reckless abandon and grace. Fashion, currently showing at The Danziger Project, fixes its lenses on works of the late Malian portraitist Seydou Keita and Nontsikelelo Veleko, or Lolo, a souls-rising, South African visual artist.
The portraits fuse Africa-old with Africa-new, dispelling any lingering Afro-pessimistic myths that the African creative is exclusively tribal antiquities and masks, or photos of villagers in the native, but an expanding dimensional prism of diverse perverse perspectives as exemplified in In/Sight: African Perspectives, 1940 to the Present at ICP last spring and other recent exhibits. Keita’s controversially authentic studio portraits showcase recently urbanized Malians in their mix of traditional and western threads and sentiments allowing the subjects’ vitality to tell its own story. Balancing Keita’s chromatic images are Veleko’s fabulously donned youth captured in their kaleidoscope of color and cityscape exuding a defiant style visible in the eyes of young city dwellers worldwide--freedom, identity, and purpose. A pleasant compliment to Veleko’s graffiti images highlighted Elsewhere Online last August.
We at Code Z are happy to see more Africa hot, and look forward to upcoming exhibits and what they have to say for themselves.
Fashion is at The Danziger Project in New York through February 24.
