Phyllis Galembo: "Maske" revisited

I am truly fond of Phyllis Galembo's work. Galembo is a photographer and professor of Art at the University at Albany, State University of  New York. She has exhibited extensively in museums, most recently Call and Response in collaboration with Nick Cave at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with Spoleto Festival USA. Her  work can also be seen in five published books, Aso-ebi: Cloth of the Family, Divine Inspiration from Benin to Bahia, Vodou: Visions and Voices of Haiti, Dressed for Thrills: 100 years of Halloween Costumes and Masquerade and Maske. 
For over two decades, Phyllis Galembo has documented cultural and religious traditions in Africa and the African Diaspora. Traveling widely throughout western and central Africa, and regularly to Haiti, her subjects are participants in masquerade events - traditional African ceremonies and contemporary fancy dress and carnival - who use costume, body paint and masks  to create mythic characters. Sometimes entertaining and humorous, often dark and frightening, her portraits document and describe the transformation power of the mask.

The exhibition Phyllis Galembo: Maske features recent photographs by the artist , including sixteen large-scale color prints of African and Haitian figures in indigenous masquerade costume. The exhibit also coincides with the release of Galembo's new book, Maske (Boot, 2010).


Exhibition at Steven Kasher Gallery, NY, March 2 - April 2, 2011
Opening reception and book signing, March 2, 6-8 pm

Four Children in Fancy Dress, Nobles Masquerade,

Winneba, Ghana, 2009

Two in Fancy Dress with Pointed Hats, Tumus

Masquerade Group, Winneba Ghana, 2010

Panther, Dodo Masquerade, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, 2009

Kambulo and Kapada, Makishi Masquerade, Kaoma, Zambia, 2007

Fancy Dress and Rasta, Nobles Masquerade Group, Winneba, Ghana, 2009

Water Buffalo Devil, Red Indians, Freetown, Sierra Leone, 2008

Ghost and Bull, Dodo Masquerade, Bobo-Dioulasso,

Burkina Faso, 2009

Janus Mask, Nkim Village, Nigeria, 2005

Atal Masquerade, Emanghabe Village, Nigeria, 2004

Agbago (Big Horse Who Comes in the Night) Masquerade,

Mountain Cut, Sierra Leon, 2009

Atam Masquerader, Alok Village, Cross River, Nigeria, 2004

All images courtesy of Phyllis Galembo/Steven Kasher Gallery
Phyllis Galembo

This post is also featured on The Huffington Post

Children of Rezistans, Haiti

On January 8th, AS IF Gallery in New York will display the art works of Ti Moun Rezistans, a children's group, whose studio is at the Atis Rezistans art school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Complementing the children's work will be a small selection of Daniel Morel's iconic photographs of the children and their surroundings in the throws of the Haitian earthquake which took place in January, 2010. Also included is Les Indiens, a large-format photograph by Phyllis Galembo, depicting four children in contemporary ritual costumes from the Jacmel Carnival in Haiti in the decade before the island's devastation.

Ti Moun Rezistans is the name of a Haitian group of children based in Port-au-Prince who study art with the more established members of the Atis Rezistans collective, also known as the Grand Rue Sculptors.

Atis Rezistans was founded in 2000 by the artists Jean Hérard Celeur and André Eugène, and set up at the south end the Grande Rue, in a close-knit neighborhood where traditional handicraft workshops are hemmed in by car repair outfits, scrap metal dealers, and junkyards. Over the last decade the Grand Rue Sculptors have exhibited their work throughout the world to considerable acclaim. "Their powerful sculptural assemblages made from engine manifolds, TV sets, wheel hubcaps and discarded lumber have transformed the detritus of a failing economy into bold and radical sculpture. They reference a shared African/Haitian cultural heritage, a dystopian sci-fi view of the future and the transformative act of assemblage." (Atis-rezistance website) Ti Moun Rezistans was established to expand the horizons, powers of expression, and most importantly, the earning capacity of the impoverished children of Port-au-Prince. The children of Ti Moun have also exhibited their artworks widely and sell them directly through their own email addresses, websites and in person at the Atis Rezistans studio in Port-au-Prince. 

Daniel Morel, Ti Moun Rezistans at Atis Rezistans Art School, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, January 12, 2010

Phyllis Galembo, " Les Indiens" , 1997

Artworks, Ti Moun Rezistans

The group

Courtesy AS IF Gallery, opening reception on Saturday, January 8th, 3-6pm at 529 Manhattan Avenue, New York

January 8 - 29, 2011
Phyllis Galembo

To view more , click on Atis Rezistans

Maske by Phyllis Galembo

New York-based artist PHYLLIS GALEMBO has been documenting masquerade and carnival-based practices around the world, and she is most celebrated for images taken in West African countries and also Haiti, where she has traveled annually for the past decade to work in Jacmel. By returning to certain places over a period of several years, Galembo has developed an understanding with some of the more secretive societies in Sierra Leone, Mali, and Burkina Faso, and this has enabled her to document carnival costume and masking practices from a broad spectrum of groups covering an immense geographical area. After years of photographing indigenous cultures, Phyllis Galembo has compiled her new book MASKE, which shows traditional masquerades from Africa. 
Galembo's photographs of African masks in their figural resplendence make one wonder with great regret what visual and artistic knowledge of masking in Africa is now forever lost. Masking is one of the most complex and secretive, yet profoundly important, phenomena in Africa.
Here are some excerpts from MASKE.

Makishi Masquerades

Zambia

Animal and Spirit Masquerades

Burkina Faso

Masquerades of Cross River

Nigeria

Gelede and Egungun Masquerades
Benin

Maske will be released on October 16, 2010

Courtesy Phyllis Galembo and publisher Chris Boot

Masquerade, a Decade by Phyllis Galembo

For more than a decade, Phyllis Galembo has been traveling to Africa and the Caribbean to photograph ritual performances and celebrations. Some of Galembo's most striking work comes for Haiti, and in the last 14 years, she has visited the island almost annually.
" Haiti is just an amazing place, I don't know whether it's the survival mechanisms they have in music and art, but there is a very special energy there that is hard to describe, "she says.
Phyllis Galembo has captured images of voodoo ceremonies under Haitian waterfalls, masquerades in Zambia and kings and queens in Nigeria.
" I think in all societies, people like the opportunity to express themselves through virtual, or through dress,"she says.

Haiti

West African Masquerade

Images courtesy of Phyllis Galembo