When Gosette Lubondo grew up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), photography was largely a man’s profession and the best a woman could do was to be a “Sunday photographer” – an amateur, in other words. Her father was a professional photographer, and she ocassionally worked with him, but she eventually began making her own photographs, and by the time she graduated from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa, she had found her own voice.
From 1908 until 1960, the DRC was a Belgian colony. Belgium has the sad distinction of being an especially cruel and exploitive colonial power, and with her series Imaginary Trip I (2016), set in an abandoned railway car, and Imaginary Trip II (2019), set in a former Christian colonial village school, Lubondo brilliantly evokes both painful memories and contemporary reality. In the series, both of which were on view at the Fowler Museum of Art at UCLA this summer, Lubondo herself appears, along with present-day young men or individuals embodying students, teachers, and staff members at the school, sometimes in semi-transparent form, like ghosts, or memories. It is as if she encapsulates the passage of time by placing her contemporary subjects into colonial history.
Elisabeth Biondi was the long-time director of photography at the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Stern Magazine. She now curates photography exhibitions, teaches, writes about photography, and is one of the three founders of the Photography Master Retreat in the South of France. For more information see elisabeth@biondifoto.com.
Liliana Porter: “Humor is a Tool”
In her exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Art, Liliana Porter peoples her tableaus with a range of figurines, from Mickey Mouse and Mao to Che Guevara and Elvis, creating playful, subversive images along the way.
Best of 2016
Formed in 1963 by 11 photographers who recognized the necessity of “a forum to address the underrepresentation of African Americans in their field,” the Kamoinge Workshop gave its members a sense of solidarity and support in a period when black Americans were the frequent subject of mainstream media coverage but rarely its author.
Sheila Metzner: Looking Backward, Dreaming Forward
A Getty Museum exhibition showcases Sheila Metzner’s luscious, languorous floral and fashion studies.
Phyllis Galembo
Maske, an exhibition on view at Florida’s Boca Rat...
Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons: Multimedia Mythmaker
At the Brooklyn Museum, the inquisitive Cuban-born artist presents work in photography, assemblage, performance, and painting.
A Career-Spanning Survey of Uta Barth's Rigorous, Seductive Photographs
The German-born photographer’s precise work, on view at the Getty Center, explores what it’s like to see and perceive our surroundings.
Bill Hunt
“Photography, for me, is a life’s mission,” says collector, curator, teacher, writer, former dealer, onetime actor, and full-time storyteller Bill Hunt.
Nona Faustine: Time-Traveling Goddess
The Brooklyn-born photographer’s solo show at the Brooklyn Museum provides an entry point into ongoing series that engage with race and the power and resilience of Black women.
Victor Burgin Revisits Photopath
The influential artist and writer reinstalls a landmark work for a new generation of viewers.
Diane Meyer Revisits Berlin
Embroidered photographs explore memory and the phantom presence of the Berlin Wall.
Alec Soth
How does a country or a community discover itself,...
Renate Aller's Immersive Landscapes
Large-scale landscape photographs from around the world explore the interconnectness of environments.