Art in Japan>Contemporary Art 1930-2004>Joy of Life: Two Photographers from Africa—JD 'Okhai Ojeikere and Malick Sidibé

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Joy of Life: Two Photographers from Africa—JD 'Okhai Ojeikere and Malick Sidibé

by John McGee

Malick Sidibé, Look at Me!, 1962, 70x70cm (Images courtesy C.A.A.C.-
The Pigozzi Collection, Geneva)

The tall, tubular crown of tight black locks is called "Onile Gogoro" or "Akaba." Articulated crab legs of hair arcing from ear to ear make up the "Ito Lozi." The guy at Supercuts probably won't know these hairdos. But they're what Nigerian photographer J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere sees—and shoots—everyday. 

Since 1968, Ojeikere (b. 1930) has documented dance, theater and other sides of Nigerian culture. But he's best known as the Hilla and Bernd Becher of hair—he's shot the sculptured coifs of hundreds of Nigerian women, creating a photographic typology in black and white. As half of the Hara Museum's two-person "Joy of Life" modern African photography show, 30 selections from Ojeikere's "Hair Styles" fill the first floor with their wild Medusa coils and cones of knobby braids. 

These are portraits of ephemeral afrotecture, not people. Though an occasional face distracts with a youthful smile, usually the large, nearly square images frame the back of a single black head floating against a white background (a few are on black backgrounds).

J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, Ito Lozi, 1971, 
60x50cm 

"To watch a 'hair artist' going through his precise gestures, like an artist making sculpture, is fascinating," Ojeikere said. Yet the photos give only hairstyle names and dates. The craftspeople, the roots of their process and elaborate iconography (marking age, status, ceremony, etc), are teased but left unexplained in this show. 

But enough seriousness—there's a party happening upstairs. Malick Sidibé (b. 1935), the unofficial staff photographer of Mali's youth culture, captures the joie de vivre of the exhibition's title in 30 photos of teens dancing and preening around Bamako, Mali's capital. 

In Mali, a party's not a party without a photographer. And with the optimism surrounding the country's 1960 independence from France, Sidibé had many opportunities to oblige. From the end of the 1950s through the '70s, he fixed the fashion and form of weekend events in often stagy, medium-format snapshots of hip-swaying couples and proud young bucks in bell-bottoms and bug-eyed sunglasses. 

"Dancez le Twist! avec Ray Charles" says the cover of an album held by a smiling young woman in a printed sundress, feathered head wrap and sandals. Elsewhere, groups of boys display 45s like Olympic medals. Western music—from the US, Europe, and Cuba—created a new world of cha-cha and twist. Touching was suddenly allowed, and suits and big bells (for the boys) and party dresses and pixie cuts (for the girls) were de rigueur. But it was adaptation rather than wholesale adoption—Western shirts appeared in raucous African patterns, and back bends went with elbow thrusts and rug cutting. 

Malick Sidibé, A Ye-ye Posing, 1963, 70x70cm

Following a hot night at a hoedown, revelers liked to cool off along the banks of the Niger River. About a third of the photos take us to the daytime chill zones where the lighthearted fashions of the dance floor gave way to wet underwear and bare pubescent flesh. In most shots, groups stand around on rocks or strike various "there's a guy with a camera, do something wacky" poses. 

After developing the photos, Sidibé would hang them in front of his studio. Like a pre-Internet Ofoto, partygoers would stop by the shop to admire themselves and, if they liked, purchase a souvenir print. You, however, will have to settle for one of the books in the museum store.

This exhibition was held Mar-Apr 2004 at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan.

©2006 John McGee

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