African Art is getting some well-deserved attention this month in New York. The Walther Collection Project Space has just opened its second exhibition this year on African Photography. It has started the fall season with a dual presentation of portraits by two modern great photographers, Seydou Keita (Mali) and August Sander (Germany). The focus is portraiture and the idea of social identity and social transition.

First I am thrilled that Artur Walther, a German collector who owns a very extensive collection of photography, and in particular African photography has decided to open this space in New York City / Chelsea, solely dedicated to African Photography. The satellite of a main exhibition venue in Neu-Ulm/Burlafingen, Germany, the project space is located at 526 West 26^th St. It is designed in a typical modernist fashion with pristine white walls, and includes a nice library space where you can buy Walther‘s scholarly publications. To my Westernized eyes shaped by the modernist aesthetic, the photographs look fabulous in that setting. But I can’t help thinking that there is something puzzling- might I say even inappropriate –  in the presentation of African photography in this modernist “white cube”. To me, Africa is colorful, chaotic, loud, and barely touched by Western modernism. That is one of the reasons I love it. It has its own sets of rules and traditions. Africa rebels against the stricture that the West continues to impose. I will venture to say that this exhibition setting is yet another colonizing act but hey, it looks good! And lets face it, there is no way around the authoritarian demands of Western modernism. So I  am immensely grateful for his project space.

The photo selection for the announcement and cover of the catalog is wonderfully stylish. Both photographs show a trio of young men looking out towards the viewer. The two groupings are equally self-conscious, keenly aware of their posture and appearance; Keita and Sanders capture the arrogance of youth in its new found identity.

Seydou Keita’s photographs are hung in the first part of the room and are striking by their theatricality. The carefully selected outfits are meant to convey social status, heritage, and tradition interplaying with modernity. They reveal the people’s playful sense of style, love of the accessory and decoration, and their sense of pride. Okwui Enwezor in speaking of Keita’s photographs describes that  “the use of props..can be understood as enabling the possibility of play, the idea of constructing an image of the sitter, and thus the myth of status, that may be attributed to the objects employed in the game.” In contrast to Sander’s desire to capture what is true about his subjects Keita’s portraiture becomes an instrument of myth-making and self-fashioning. Such a gathering of Sander’s photos is also a rare site in New York City. The selection is extensive and as such illustrates well Sander’s purpose as described by Gabriele Conrath-Scholl to “establish a record both of the various social classes and of their environments.”  The photographs demand close scrutiny because it is in the details (posture, work accessory) that the social identity is conveyed.

Both artists carefully construct the image to convey the social identity of the sitter and yet differences are highlighted by the juxtaposition of the two bodies of work. Keita’s images speak of his subjects’ social aspirations while Sander’s images conveys the current social status of his sitters. Furthermore there is a directness in Keita’s sitters that you don’t find in Sander’s who show little of their personality.