Thursday, July 28, 2016

Writing Mali into Light: Seydou Keïta’s Photography at the Grand Palais - Part 2

By Sojourner Ahébée

The word “photography” comes from the Greek roots photos, meaning light, and graphé, meaning drawing or writing. In other words, photography is writing with light. And that is just what Seydou Keïta did with his camera. He wrote Mali into light, love, and liberation.

Keïta had a profound love and respect for the Black woman, and his ability to give Black women in his photographs their own sense of dignity and beauty continues to amaze. So naturally, some of the most touching images from the exhibition were images of Black women: women on motorcycles; women with their children; women with their husbands, boyfriends, and lovers; women alongside other women looking out for one another; women standing; women with their bodies reclined across the ground; women with gold hanging from their necks; women working their sewing machines; women being proud to be women.

Seydou Keïta
Untitled, 1959-60
120 x 180 cm
Private collection, Paris

Seydou Keïta
Untitled, 1949
50 x 60 cm
Collection Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris

In a general sense, the post-independent period in many African nations across the continent was marked by many promises. But women, many African women in particular, were often excluded from such promises, as they continued to be oppressed by traditional forces and customs that had existed before the colonial period. Some of these things included gender roles, female genital mutilation, expectation to marry, etc.

As independence from French colonial powers granted African men a new sense of freedom and opportunity, African women could not subscribe so easily into these new notions of liberation. They were still fighting for their bodies and their agency, things that were recognized neither by both the colonial regime, nor by much of the African male population. But Keïta’s commitment to rendering the African woman visible, powerful, and as existing for herself in lieu of the eyes and appetites of others is truly a testament to his desire to include the African woman in this new, liberated Africa.

Keïta is often remembered for his images of “the reclining woman”. Throughout the exhibition there were endless photographs of women spread out across the ground in a reclining manner, as they relaxed, held their children, or leaned against a lover. The African woman, and by extension the Black woman, is often depicted as an endurer of pain and trauma. By constantly providing us with images of African women in moments of leisure and tranquility, Keïta stresses the necessity for a space in which the African woman can know peace and pleasure.

Seydou Keïta
Untitled (Couple allongé), 1952-55
120 x 180 cm
Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris

Seydou Keïta
Untitled, 1959 (Left) & Untitled, 1958 (Right)
120 x 180 cm (Left) & 127 x 180 (Right)

Seydou Keïta
Untitled, 1949
120 x 180 cm
Collection agnès b., Paris

Keïta also makes use of his portraits as tools for African women to imagine their strength and agency in a modern and urbanized African society. The machine inevitably becomes intricately connected to the Malian woman’s everyday life. Whether she is headed to a party on her motorcycle, making a dress on her sewing machine, or listening to the latest hit on the radio, the machine becomes a dominant mode of expression of power and elation throughout the photographs.

Seydou Keïta
Untitled, 1953
77 x 60 cm

Finally, Keïta affirms and validates spaces for women to enjoy the company of one another. Here, their happiness, beauty, and value are not determined by the presence of men. Rather, a purely female, African joy is centered, allowing African women to find worth in their love for one another.

Seydou Keïta
Untitled, 1956-57
127 x 180 cm

Seydou Keïta
Untitled, 1959-1960
50 x 60 cm
Collection Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris

Seydou Keïta
Untitled, 1956-57
127 x 180 cm


Paris’s Grand Palais, one of the city’s most beloved national galleries, was home to the Seydou Keïta photography exhibition from March 31st to July 11th, 2016.


Sojourner Ahébée is a 2016 BOSP Continuation International Fellow for the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University. She is currently serving as the Paris intern for the Wells International Foundation.

Read more of Sojourner's work at Sojourner Ahébée.


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Thursday, July 21, 2016

Writing Mali into Light: Seydou Keïta’s Photography at the Grand Palais - Part 1

By Sojourner Ahébée

The word “photography” comes from the Greek roots photos, meaning light, and graphé, meaning drawing or writing. In other words, photography is writing with light. And that is just what Seydou Keïta did with his camera. He wrote Mali into light, love, and liberation.

These days I am often thinking about the Black body. I am thinking about Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and the way this list of bodies will be longer by the time I'm done writing this. I am thinking about the camera and what it takes to make you see. I am thinking about the camera and what it means to look, what it means to attend to history, what it means to attend to violence you cannot stop, what it means to attend to violence the Black body has lived through for centuries.

Seydou Keïta was unapologetic in his celebration of the Black body, and Black joy. Through his photos, he invited Black folks on the African continent and across the diaspora to take up space, to love, to dance, to find their truest selves. In light of all the recent police terror that has plagued the Black body in the U.S., the recent exhibition of his work at Paris’s Grand Palais -- and by extension, the full body of his work -- asked me to imagine a future where the Black body can be safe, joyous and alive in all of its possibilities.

Seydou Keïta exhibition flier

Keïta, who was born in 1921 in the French colony of French Sudan (now known as modern-day Mali), was initially be trained as a carpenter by his father from the age of seven. But in 1935 after his uncle’s trip to Senegal, Keïta was gifted with his very first camera -- a Kodak Brownie to be exact -- prompting him to re-imagine his calling and his role in a country navigating transition between its colonial identity and its approaching independence.

Keïta followed his passion for photography throughout the years, and became intimately invested in the portrait. Through his photographs, he conjured the power to give his community visibility and beauty in a world that worked to deny them even those simple things. In 1948, he opened his own photography studio near the train station in Bamako and quickly became a success in the bustling city, as voyagers hailing from all over West Africa as well as young Malian urbanites living in the city flocked to Keïta to have their photos taken.

Twelve years later, French Sudan would gain its independence (1960) and becomes the Republic of Mali. Keïta’s portraits frequent the urgency of such a transition. Here, the personal becomes political. Keita’s portraits become the act of affirming, centering, and naming an African identity post-independence. They are the act of telling an African story of survival, as well as the African desire for modernity from a purely African perspective.

Seydou Keïta at work
Screenshot from "Souvenirs de Seydou Keïta 4/5"

Seydou Keïta at the Grand Palais asks viewers to step into a 20th-century Mali that is rocking back and forth between its tradition and its modernity. For Mali, it is the era of big radios and motorcycles, of men in suits. It is the era of fast trains and long cars. It is the era of families moving into big cities. It is the era of the photograph, it is the era of the black, African body asking to be seen.

The emergence of and need for a post-colonial, modern, Malian aesthetic and identity is evident in many of the photos. But the love and preservation of a traditional Mali, whether that be through the strong presence of African cloth and fashion or the recurring image of traditional ceremonies, celebrations, and marriages, is also evident. Keïta shows us a Mali that is able imagine both worlds for itself.

Seydou Keita
Untitled, 1954
120 x 180 x 4 cm
Image courtesy of Sojourner Ahébée

Keïta’s portraits also bring to the forefront a greater conversation between the West and former, African colonial subjects. Many of the individuals in the portraits sport Westerns fashions and standards of elegance, further establishing a kind of African obsession with Western standards of success and wealth. But this conversation is complicated by a violent and oppressive French colonial history in Mali, rendering the prevalence of Western aesthetics in the photos -- as well as the ways in which they are often paired with traditional, Malian fashion -- as subversive, or, in some sense, as a muscular reacquisition of power and African identity and humanity.

Modernity does not belong to the West, and Keïta’s subjects -- who are often local Malian citizens -- work to challenge the West’s claim on such an aesthetic by clothing themselves in both Malian as well as “Western” modes of dress. Furthermore, this creative and empowering metissage of cultures allows them to imagine a Malian identity that escapes any singular or static notion of existence.

Seydou Keita
Untitled, 1959
120 x 99 cm
Image courtesy of Sojourner Ahébée

Keïta was often searching for a space where the newly-independent, modern Mali and the Mali of a traditional, African past could meet. His portraits provided him with such a space. Keïta developed a deep love and important obsession with Malian textile and cloth. The vast majority of his portraits in the exhibition included large and vibrantly-colored pieces of African textile draped behind his subjects.

Seydou Keita
Untitled (Deux Femmes-fond), 1956
180 x 120 cm
Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris
Image courtesy of Sojourner Ahébée

Before each shoot, Keïta would meticulously select the piece of cloth he planned to include in the photograph. Cloth in the West African tradition maintains a significant part of West African identity and expression. Many cloths carry their own particular meanings (and stories), and often these meanings create a system of rules and rituals that dictate when and where such a cloth can be worn. So, as post-independent Malians in the photographs are depicted in their suits, or leaning against their shiny radios, Keïta situates the African cloth as a backdrop and as a spirited and colorful reminder of a traditional Malian identity and aesthetic. The cloths that he chooses are often bold in color and in pattern, further making tangible a dynamic and animated Black joy, post-independence.

Seydou Keita
Untitled, 1956-57
90 x 130 cm
Image courtesy of Sojourner Ahébée

Paris’s Grand Palais, one of the city’s most beloved national galleries, was home to the Seydou Keïta photography exhibition from March 31st to July 11th, 2016.

Sojourner Ahébée is a 2016 BOSP Continuation International Fellow for the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University. She is currently serving as the Paris intern for the Wells International Foundation.

Read more of Sojourner's work at Sojourner Ahébée.


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Thursday, July 14, 2016

Caffé Créole


I have wanted to review the restaurant Caffé Créole since July 2013, when I visited the nearby art gallery BE-ESPACE (now closed) to see a fantastic exhibition of works by Alexis Peskine. Something has always prevented me from going there...until now!

The restaurant is located on boulevard Beaumarchais, about a third of the way between place de la Bastille and place de la République. The evening that Tom and I dined there, the atmosphere on the sidewalk terrace was animated because of a UEFA Euro 2016 match that was in full swing.

We arrived early enough to benefit from happy hour and decided to order caipirinhas, the classic Brazilian cocktail, while we perused the menu. They were quite refreshing!

Caffé Créole Caipirinha
© Discover Paris!

For the starter, Tom selected Feroce d’avocat, a paste of shredded, dried codfish, avocado, and cassava flour. Served chilled on a plate with achards (a type of cold slaw in spicy sauce) and a mixed-green salad, it was a tasty dish that somewhat resembled guacamole with grainy texture.

Féroce d'avocat
© Discover Paris!

I ordered samossas and was delighted with the appearance of this appetizer. But I mistakenly thought that they had a vegetable filling and gave them to Tom when I discovered that they were made from tuna (I'm not a seafood eater).

Samossas
© Discover Paris!

As a replacement, I ordered Boudin créole, a portion of three small blood sausages served with mixed-green salad, achards, and two kinds of salsa, one hot and one mild. The owner of the restaurant came to the table and offered a third type of salsa made from vinegar, chopped bell pepper, grated cabbage, and sliced green onions. The boudin was only mildly spicy and the owner specified that the special salsa also was not spicy. I enjoyed the combination of the two.

Boudin créole
© Discover Paris!

Special condiment for boudin
© Discover Paris!

Tom and I both selected Colombo de cabri (goat stew) as our main course. Our portions were generous and redolent with the aroma of cloves and other spices. Sides of long-grain white rice, achards, fried plantain, and cassava were served on the same plate as the stew, and tender red beans flavored with onion were served in a separate bowl for us to share. Along with the rice, these could have been a course on their own.

Colombo de cabri
© Discover Paris!

When it came time for dessert, I was satiated and decided not to indulge in this course. Tom ordered the Sorbet coco maison and received two scoops of house-made coconut sorbet in a coconut shell. He described it as being surprisingly rich with slightly-grainy texture and enjoyed it immensely!

I appreciated the eclectic decor of this restaurant, which includes straw hats of many colors, a madras pattern of orange, yellow, peach, green, and white on the walls, and several works of art that evoke the black Creole world.


Caffé Créole decor
© Discover Paris!

Three persons served us that evening and each of them was friendly and accommodating. I wouldn't hesitate to return to dine at Caffé Créole!

Caffé Créole
62, boulevard Beaumarchais
75011 Paris
Tel: 01 55 28 50 76
Métro: Chemin Vert (Line 8) or Bréguet-Sabin (Line 5)

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Thursday, July 7, 2016

Louis Armstrong in Paris

Louis Armstrong spent a good deal of time in Paris, performing at the best venues in town, recording, and even making a movie (Paris Blues). Here are some fun facts about Satchmo and the City of Light!

Louis Armstrong stencil art
© Discover Paris!

During his first visit to Paris in 1932, Armstrong stayed at Le Grand Hôtel, across from the Palais Garnier and down the street from the Olympia Theater.

Le Grand Hôtel
© Discover Paris!

In 1934-1935, Armstrong lived at the Hôtel Alba Opéra in the 9th arrondissement. A plaque on the façade of the building honors him.

Hôtel Alba Opéra - façade
© Discover Paris!

Plaque at Hôtel Alba Opéra
© Discover Paris!

He frequented Eugene Bullard's Athletic Club, which was also located in the 9th arrondissement, during this stay.

Ad for Eugene Bullard's Athletic Club
© Discover Paris!

In 1947, Armstrong recorded a jazzy version of the Edith Piaf classic song "La Vie en Rose." Listen to it here:



In 1991, a square in the 13th arrondissement was dedicated to him to commemorate his first recording outside the U.S. at a nearby music studio.

Place Louis Armstrong
© Discover Paris!

Flower bed at Place Louis Armstrong
© Discover Paris!

In 2003, Didier Jeunesse published a children's book on Armstrong for its Guinguette collection. Called Armstrong, it was written by Claude Nougaro and Maurice Vander.

Armstrong - book cover
© Discover Paris!

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