IMAGES OF AFRICA
An online auction provides a chance to own a piece of African photography while also doing good, writes Tymon Smith
In recent years photography has begun to play an increasingly visible role on the secondary market with more works by South African and African photographers commanding high prices at auction. “Photography is bigger than ever and one of the strongest growing markets in all fields of art collecting,” says Ruarc Peffers, Aspire Art Auctions MD.
“This is a field set for major growth.”
In light of this, the auction house has collaborated with the Photography Legacy Project (PLP) to present the first auction dedicated entirely to photography from Africa.
The proceeds from the sale of the 126 lots on offer will go towards funding the work of the PLP, which curators Paul Weinberg and Nonhlanhla Kumalo describe as a digital platform that “fills in the gap of photography museum for the country and continent … [providing] a digital portal of photographic legacies for education, heritage and scholarship purposes”.
In the climate of Covid-19 and in an environment where constant funding is necessary for its project to repatriate the continent’s photographic heritage, the PLP decided to embark on an auction to raise funds for its work. But Weinberg is careful to make clear that the concept of the auction is not a donation by photographers but a partnership as well. “We both share equally in the sale of the images. We chose Aspire because of their track record and willingness to support projects like ours.”
With 55 photographers from across Africa participating, the sale is a means of generating income for artists who have been hard hit by the pandemic. It also offers people a chance to experience the diversity of work created by African photographers.
For collectors, the auction offers an opportunity to add to their collections while helping to address the depressing fact that, as Peffers notes, “the underrepresentation of African artists and photographers has contributed to a visceral representation gap of black artists within collections globally”.
For their part, Weinberg and Kumalo hope that the photographic community and the collectors benefit from the contribution of African photographers in the auction and join in with the same spirit in which the photographers have participated. “The buying market and the photographers themselves are two sides of the same coin. They play a complementary role in supporting each other. Participating in the auction is also sharing in the vision of the PLP to make African photography accessible for education and scholarship. In that joint endeavour we’re all making history.”
Highlights on offer include a portfolio of 12 silver gelatin prints from Ernest Cole’s archive presented by the Ernest Cole Family Trust. The portfolio, from his seminal 1967 book House of Bondage, is part of Cole’s recovered legacy. There are works from such luminaries as David Goldblatt, Alf Kumalo, photographers from Drum Magazine including Bob Gosani, GR Naidoo, Ranjith Kally and Ian Berry, as well as more contemporary internationally acclaimed photographers like Guy Tillim, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Jo Ractliffe, Emmanuelle
Andrianjafy, Syowia Kyambi and Mikhael Subotzky, as well as works by upcoming and emerging young South African photographers from the Market Photo Workshop. The auction also features works by photographers based in Sudan, Ghana, Senegal, Angola, Namibia and Kenya and what Weinberg describes as “a compelling contribution of vernacular studio and street photography from the project, The Other Camera … The auction showcases some of these rare collections by photographers such as Ronald Ngilima and William Matlala.”