From Maputo
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Transcript of From Maputo
“From Maputo” / “De Maputo” at A Pequena Galeria (The Little Gallery), Lisboa
Photographs by José Cabral and Luís Basto, with Moira Forjaz and
Rogério (two small tributes)
Lisbon. 26.06 - 14.07.2013
In the space between pioneer photographer Ricardo Rangel and the new
photographers who have taken part in BES Photo and Gulbenkian’s Next Future –
Mário Macilau, Mauro Pinto and Filipe Branquinho –, there are the works of those
who differed from what we might refer to as the Mozambican school of
photography, the photojournalistic and humanist tradition, which, incidentally, has
quite a few good authors in its ranks.
JOSÉ CABRAL (b. 1952, Maputo) is the man behind the rupture, having instilled
the desire for a personal discourse in Mozambique’s photography collective, a
discourse based upon a wide knowledge of international photography and in broad
cultural interests, going beyond the national and African framework.
The autobiographical reference in his last three
exhibitions – “As Linhas da Minha Mão” (The
Lines of My Hand), 2006 Maputo, Photofesta;
“Anjos Urbanos / Urban Angels”, 2009 at P4
Photography, Lisbon - http://2009/05/condicao-
humana.html - and Maputo, “Espelhos
Quebrados” (Broken Mirrors), 2012, Maputo –
is a courageous contribution to bringing to
light the role and place of the beholder, and in
doing so, in exposing his own history as well,
is a lucid artistic intervention in the present
events of a rapidly changing country. Both
during and after the collective dynamic, with
its unforeseen and often terrible setbacks, it
was time for each artist to question himself, as
well as the sense of a common path.
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In “De Maputo” there are works of those three exhibitions on display: personal
anthology, children (Cabral’s and the other people’s, with an obvious
differentiation in skin colour and social means) and the near self-portraits
signalling courses of life and relationships.
José Cabral is now the cultural reference and the unruly master of young
photographers, with an extensive body of work dating back to 1975, when he
began working as a photographer at the Instituto Nacional de Cinema (National
Film Institute), followed by few years as an agency photojournalist, a newspaper
photographer for Notícias e and Domingo, with Rangel, in 1981-82, and, later, a
professor at the Centro de Formação Fotográfica (Centre for Photographic
Education), between 1986 and 1990. In 1996 he published his first book, Guerra
da Água (Water War), on Ébano Multimédia, in association with a Licínio de
Azevedo film of the same name (in colour, with printing problems). He has tried to
get by as a photographer in Maputo, which is no easy feat.
LUÍS BASTO (b. 1969, Maputo) is also a self-taught photographer, with a unique
and recognizable language, present in international collective shows such as
“Africa Remix” (2004) and Okwui Enwezor’s “Snap Judgments – new positions
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i n c o n t e m p o r a r y A f r i c a n
photography” (2006), in which he was
Mozambique’s sole representative.
While building a large database of
documentary footage of the country
www.mozambiquephotos/Portfolio.html
Luís Basto has also been a photographer
of the city and the of the ability to survive
that lies therein: “The mpty years are
decades gone; with them the fate of a
generation who had to fight war for other
men’s reasons. Many born into peace
have no memory of the fragmented lives
that flooded the city as wandering souls.
Where we came from and where we are
now is framed not as much by time as by
the dimensions of city space. We are in the windows, behind the doors, reflected
citizens in all our contradictions.” – Berry Bickle, in Luís Basto fotógrafo /
photographer, Éditions de l’Oeil, Montreuil, 2004, http://
www.editionsdeloeil.com/index.
Going back in time, the exhibition includes two works by two authors who, in
different ways, brought experience back from Rhodesia and South Africa to
Maputo so as to develop original and independent careers in the years after
independence, which they later interrupted.
ROGÉRIO (Pereira) was a photographer and photojournalist working in South
Africa (1968-1977), Mozambique (1973-1979) and Portugal (1979-1987), whose
formally demanding, politically committed and restless production stood out. Born
in Lisbon in 1942, he was seven years old when he moved to Mozambique, and 45
when he died of cancer in Setúbal, Portugal, in 1987. In 1973 he exhibited at the
Núcleo de Arte (Center for Art) Ricardo Rangel and Basil Breakey. In 1981 he
showed his work at the Gulbenkian Foundation (“Momentos”).
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In 1990 he was honoured with a retrospective show in two parts at the Associação
Moçambicana de Fotografia (Mozambican Association of Photography), in
collaboration with Ricardo Rangel, Kok Nam and José Pinto de Sá, who wrote the
accompanying text. “Verdade” (Truth), another retrospective of his work, was part
of the first edition of Photofesta, in 2002.
MOIRA FORJAZ is the author of Muipiti, Ilha
de Moçambique (Muipiti, Island of
Mozambique) – text by Amélia Muge, Imprensa
Nacional, 1983, published without her
supervision). Born in Zimbabwe in 1942, she
visited Lourenço Marques / Maputo regularly
since 1961. Holding a degree in Graphic Arts
from the Johannesburg School of Arts and
Design, Moira Forjaz worked as a
photojournalist in Southern Africa since 1964,
and lived in Maputo between 1975 and 1988.
She helped create the Associação Moçambicana
de Fotografia (Mozambican Photography
Association), in 1981, and directed two films in
that same year.
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Other publications: Ruth First, Black Gold: The Mozambican Miner, Proletarian
and Peasant, St. Martin's Press, New York / Harvester Press, Brighton, 1983
(photographs) and Images of a Revolution: Mural Art in Mozambique, Zimbabwe
Publishing House, Harare, 1983 (Albie Sacks, text, Moira Forjaz, Susan Meiselas,
photographs). Moira Forjaz went back to showing her work in 2009, “Kukumbula
(Memórias) 1976 – 1986”, Espaço de Kulunguana, Maputo. (http://2009/03/
depoisdemuitipi.html)
#
This exhibition was organized with Filipe Branquinho (http://
filipebranquinho2013/04.html, http://www.magnin-a.com/artiste.php?
id_artiste=45), with the complicity of Janice Lemos and Uno Pereira, in Maputo
and Cape Town, as well as Isabel Carlos and Leonor Nazaré (at the Modern Art
Centre of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (http://rogeriona-colecao-do-
cam.html), who made it possible for Rogério Pereira to be represented. Malenga
and Mauro Pinto (http://www.magnin-a.com ) also assisted in the assembling. “De
Maputo” is dedicated to Elisa Santos, who has been revealing the new
“Ocupantes” to us ("Ocupações Temporárias", ocupacoestemporarias.blogspot.pt/
2010/03.html.com Maputo 2010/2013, Lisboa 2013, and to Elísio Macamo, the
sociologist who teaches us how to think, from Mozambique via Basel.
Alexandre Pomar - http://alexandrepomar.typepad.com/
(translation by Francisca Cortesão)
a Pequena GaleriaAvenida 24 de Julho 4C | 1200-480 Lisboa, Portugal T. + 351 218 264 081 | email. [email protected]
! Until 14 July 2013 4ª - 6 ª: 18-20h / sat: 16-20h / sun. 18-20h
PHOTOS1. José Cabral: Kok Nam dnd Lisdália, Maputo, 1988.2. José Cabral: Inhambane, 19953. Luís Basto: Passionate body / Corpo apaixonado, Bairro da Liberdade, Maputo, 20084. Rogério Pereira: S/ Título, s/ data. (Col. Centro de Arte Moderna, FCG). 5. Moira Forjaz: Moamba (?), Sul de Moçambique,1962?© os autores / Janice Lemos, Maputo - Cortesia CAM-FCG
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