Steidlville

Africa; Terra incognita? The Heart of darkness? Maybe even the "stylish continent", as one of those Zeitgeist mags once formulated? There still is a colonial shadow looming over the gigantic landmass, a territory of projections and misunderstandings. "Africa", says documenta director Okwui Enwezor, "must no longer be the psycho-sexual object of daydreams and nightmares of the Europeans." Flash Afrique! presents works of West African photographers which tell stories about the tension between dream and reality between the background of desire production and existence's scene of devastation.

The book on hand contains elaborately arranged studio portraits which have become a valuable reservoir of pictures of how Africa sees itself. And it shows documentary works which depict and comment on the sheer craziness and the existential getting out of hand in over-populated metropolisses. Conversations with the photograpahers and essays by Olu Oguibe, Simon Njami and Koyo Kouoh open up entries to an art scene which is just beginning to step out of the half-shadow of a fragmentary perception.

Philip Kwame Apagya, Dorris Haron Kasco, Seydou Keïta, Boubacar Touré Mandémory, Bouna Medoune Seye and Malick Sidibé.