Another Africa:
Photographs by Robert Lyons
Swimmer, La Guinguette, Burkina Faso, 1991
Great Mud Mosque, Djenne, Mali, 1991
Young Bambara Woman, Segou, Mali, 1991
Unaccompanied Minor, Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, 1996
Street vendor, Mopti, Mali, 1991
Bushtaxi Stand, Mopti, Mali, 1991
Falasha Woman, Chowit, Ethiopia, 1991
Another Africa: Photographs by Robert Lyons, presents an antidote to the depictions of an abject, ravaged Africa, choosing instead to capture Africa of untapped strength and unimaginable beauty. Lyon’s Mission is straight forward and simple: “What I’m hoping to do is to show you what we share, what humans beings share. Rather than saying what the differences are, I’d like to celebrate our common humanity.”
Robert Lyon’s photographs from sub-Saharan Africa, made during his extensive travels through and across Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia, form the core of this exhibition. Though aware of his “outsider” status, he clearly addresses the challenges inherent in this body of work: “I was, and still am, an outsider to Africa. Through the process of returning time and again, my perspective has evolved… [and] has allowed me to enter situations often unnerving or uncomfortable to peer into, and to create imagery that is simultaneously from within and without.”
WORKS
55
DIMENSIONS
33 x 28 to 48 x 38 (inches)
83,82 x 71,12 to 121.92 x 96,52 (cm)
SPACE REQUIREMENTS
250 linear feet (76,2 linear meters)
INQUIRIES
exhibitions@curatorial.org
626.577.0044
FEE
$5000 for a six week period
CURATOR BIOGRAPHY
Robert Lyons began his career as an artist while visiting Morocco in 1977. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Lyons turned his lens and focus on Egypt. Eleven excursions to the country yielded a stunning array of images. His first published photographic collection, Egyptian Time, in 1992 included a short story by eminent Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz.
He lives and works in Portland, Oregon. He founded and is Director of the International Limited-Residency Photo MFA Program at the University of Hartford Art School. He has taught extensively in the USA and Europe at various institutions including: Emily Carr College of Art & Design, University of Washington, Photographic Center Northwest, International Center of Photography, and the Ostkreuzschule in Berlin, Germany.
PUBLICATION
Another Africa: Photographs by Robert Lyons, poems and essay by Chinua Achebe.
(Random House Publishers, 1998)
The publications serves as a catalogue for the exhibitin and features and important essay by the internationally acclaim Nigerian novelist, critic and poet Chinua Achebe; entitled “Africa’s Tarnished Name,” Achebe’s eloquent piece disparages the misrepresentation of Africa by foreign artists and writers, part of a sustained critique begun in his first novel Things Fall Apart in 1958.
Lyons says of his Achebe’s collaboration: “We wanted to depict Africa in a different light, in a different manner; one that felt was more in tune with our own experiences, as opposed to a Westernized ‘romantic’ view. We wanted to depict a view of contemporary art today.”