Pieter Hugo

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Pieter Hugo
Born (1976-10-29) 29 October 1976 (age 47)
Johannesburg, South Africa
Occupation Photographer
Years active 2002 - present

Pieter Hugo was born 1976 in Johannesburg,[1] South Africa. He is a photographer who primarily works in portraiture and whose work engages with both documentary and art traditions with a focus on African communities.[2] Hugo lives in Cape Town.[3]

Early life

After working in the film industry in Cape Town, Pieter Hugo spent a two-year Residency at Fabrica research centre, Treviso, Italy.[4]

Career

Hugo's photography deals with "marginalized or unusual groups of people: honey gatherers in Ghana, Nigerian gang members who bring hyenas or baboons on their rounds to collect debts, boy scouts in Liberia, taxi washers in Durban, judges in Botswana".[3] Hugo's first major photo collection "Looking Aside" consisted of a collection of portraits of people "whose appearance makes us look aside",[5] his subjects include the blind, people with albinism, the aged, his family and himself.[5] Each man, woman and child poses in a sterile studio setting, under crisp light against a blank background.[3]

Explaining his interest in the marginal he has said, "My homeland is Africa, but I'm white. I feel African, whatever that means, but if you ask anyone in South Africa if I'm African, they will almost certainly say no. I don't fit into the social topography of my country and that certainly fuelled why I became a photographer."[6]

This was followed by "Rwanda 2004: Vestiges of a Genocide" which the Rwanda Genocide Institute describes as offering "a forensic view of some of the sites of mass execution and graves that stand as lingering memorials to the many thousands of people slaughtered."[7]

His most recognized work is the series called 'The Hyena & Other Men' and which was published as a monograph. It has received a great deal of attention.[6][8]

Hugo was also working on a series of photographs called 'Messina/Mussina' that were taken in the town of Musina on the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa and which was published as a monograph[9] after Colors magazine asked Hugo to work on an AIDS story.[9]

This was followed by a return to Nigeria with 'Nollywood', which consists of pictures of the Nigerian film industry.[10]

'Permanent Error' followed in 2011 where Hugo photographed the people and landscape of an expansive dump of obsolete technology in Ghana.[1] Sean O'Toole writes 'if Nollywood was playfully over-the-top, a smart riposte to accusations of freakishness and racism levelled at his photography..., Permanent Error marks Hugo’s return to a less self-reflexive mode of practice.'[11]

In 2011 Hugo collaborated with Michael Cleary and co-directed the video of South African producer/DJ Spoek Mathambo's cover version of Joy Division's She's Lost Control, the fourth single from his album Mshini Wam.[12]

In the Spring of 2014, Hugo was commissioned by Creative Court[13] to go to Rwanda and capture stories of forgiveness as a part of Creative Court's project Rwanda 20 Years: Portraits of Forgiveness.[14] The project was displayed in The Hague in the Atrium of The Hague City Hall for the 20th commemoration of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. A selection of the photos have also been displayed in New York at the exhibition "Post-Conflict" which was curated by Bradley McCallum, Artist in Residence for the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.[15][16]

2015 saw Hugo directing the music video for "Dirty", a song by controversial South African musical artists Dookoom.[17]

Recognition

Awards

Hugo won first prize in the Portraits section of the World Press Photo 2005 for a portrait of a man with a hyena.[18][19]

In 2007, Hugo received the Standard Bank Young Artist Award 07.[20]

In 2012 Hugo was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.[citation needed]

In 2015, Hugo was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet.[21]

Critical reception

While receiving a lot of 'critical bouquets', Hugo has also been accused of sensationalising and exploiting the exotic "other". Hugo responds, "My intentions are in no way malignant, yet somehow people pick it up in that way. I've travelled through Africa, I know it, but at the same time I'm not really part of it... I can't claim to [have] an authentic voice, but I can claim to have an honest one."[2]

Figures and Fictions co-curator Tamar Garb is ambivalent about the ethical questions his work poses: "Some people feel his work perpetuates an image of Africa as a space of abject poverty and of theatrical display for a Western art market – but he genuinely engages with the places he works in and questions the means of his own representation."[2]

In "The Photography of Pieter Hugo" in Aperture Magazine, Bronwyn Law-Viljoen says: "The novelist John Fowles observes, in an essay on The French Lieutenant's Woman, that 'All human modes of description (photographic, mathematical…) are metaphorical. Even the most precise scientific description of an object or a movement is a tissue of metaphors.'[22] Hugo understands that a photographic metaphor, a way of describing something through reference to something else, is created as much by the elements inside the frame of the image itself as by the carefully chosen distance, what I have called the critical zone, from the photographer’s lens to his subject. It is within this zone that Hugo maneuvers through the muddy waters of political engagement, documentary responsibility, and the relationship of these to his own aesthetic."[23]

Gallery exhibitions

Solo

  • 2002: Margin, the Cold Room Photographic Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
  • 2004: Rwanda 2004: Vestiges of a Genocide, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa[24]
  • 2004: The Albino Project, National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome, Italy
  • 2004: The Albino Project, Fabrica Features, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 2006: Looking Aside, Warren Siebrits Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa[25]
  • 2006: Presence, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa;[26] Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland[27]
  • 2007: Looking Aside, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA[28]
  • 2007: Messina/Musina, Extraspazio, Rome, Italy[29]
  • 2007: Messina/Musina, Standard Bank Young Artist Award 2007 touring exhibition, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum, Port Elizabeth; Durban Art Gallery, Durban; Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town
  • 2007: Pieter Hugo: The Hyena & Other Men, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY[30]
  • 2008: Messina/Musina, National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa[31]
  • 2008: Works 2002-2007, Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland[32]
  • 2008: Nollywood, Warren Siebrits Contemporary,[33] Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 2008: Portraits, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, UK
  • 2008: Portraits, Ffotogallery, Cardiff, UK[34]
  • 2008: God’s Time is the Best, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Rotterdam, The Netherlands[35]
  • 2008: The Hyena and Other Men, FOAM_Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands[36]
  • 2008: Pieter Hugo: Selected Works, Tinglado 2, Tarragona, Spain[37]
  • 2009: Nollywood, Australian Center for Photography, Sydney, Australia[38]
  • 2009: Nollywood, Extraspazio, Rome, Italy[38]
  • 2009: Nollywood, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa[39]
  • 2010: Nollywood, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide, Australia[40]
  • 2010: The Hyena and Other Men, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya, Israel[41]
  • 2010: Be Prepared!, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Rotterdam, The Netherlands[42]
  • 2010: Nollywood, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands[43]
  • 2010: On Reality and Other Stories, Le château d’eau, pôle photographique de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
  • 2010: Nollywood, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
  • 2010: Nollywood, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY[44]
  • 2010: On Reality and Other Stories, Forest Centre Culturel, BRASS, Brussels, Belgium[45]
  • 2010: The Hyena and Other Men, Photographic Centre Peri, Turku, Finland
  • 2010: Nollywood, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia[46]
  • 2010: Permanent Error, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa; Brodie Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa[47]
  • 2011: Permanent Error, Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, Toronto, Canada[48]
  • 2011: Permanent Error, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY[44]
  • 2012: The Hyena & Other Men, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow[49]
  • 2013: This must be the place - Selected works 2003-2012, Ludwig Museum, Budapest[50]
  • 2015: Kin, Fondation Cartier-Bresson, Paris[51]
  • 2015: Portraits: From the unsaid to the un-dead, Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Mauritius[52]
  • 2015: In Focus, National Portrait Gallery, London, United Kingdom.[53]
  • 2016: Kin, Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany.[54]
  • 2016: 1994, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa [55]

Group

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  • 2001: New South African Art, JAK Gallery, London, UK
  • 2002: Positions on South African Photography – Today, OMC Galerie, Düsseldorf, Germany
  • 2002: Margin, The Cold Room Photographic Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
  • 2006: From Chaos to Order and Back, DDD Gallery, Osaka, Japan; Ginza Graphic Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
  • 2003: Staged Realities—The Studio in African Photography, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
  • 2005: reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Musée de l'Élysée, Lausanne, Switzerland; Aperture Gallery, New York, NY; Art Institute of Boston, Boston, MA
  • 2006: Rivers of Suffering, Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
  • 2006: Black, Brown and White, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
  • 2006: Nie Meer, De Warande in Turnhout, Belgium
  • 2006: Tour - Cape Town to Miami: Hilger Contemporary, Vienna, Austria; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
  • 2006: Pingyao International Photographic Festival (PIP), Pingyao, China
  • 2006: Street: Behind the Cliché, Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
  • 2006: Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Santiago de Chile, Chile
  • 2006: Como Viver Junto, 27th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil
  • 2006: South African Art Now, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
  • 2007: Art Institute of Boston, MA
  • 2007: reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA
  • 2007: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany
  • 2007: Reality Check: Contemporary art photography from South Africa 2007, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Chemnitz, Germany; Museum Bochum, Bochum, Germany; Galerie der Stadt Sindelfingen, Sindelfingen, Germany
  • 2007: Family Relation, Warren Siebrits, Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 2007: In Your Face, Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland
  • 2007: Faccia A Faccia: Il nouvo ritratto fotografico, FORMA, Centro Internazionale di Fotografia, Milan, Italy
  • 2007: An Atlas of Events, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 2007: Contemporary Photography from South Africa – Part 1, Hereford Photography Festival, UK
  • 2007: Lumo ’07 – ‘us,’ 7th International Triennial of Photography, Finland
  • 2008: reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, DeVos Art Museum, Marquette, MI; Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art; Miami Dade Community College, Miami, FL
  • 2008: Presumed Innocence: Photographic Perspectives of Children, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Massachusetts
  • 2008: Make Art/Stop AIDS, Fowler Museum at University of California, Los Angeles, CA
  • 2008: Street & Studio: An Urban History of Photography, Tate Modern, London, UK; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
  • 2008: Rencontres d'Arles festival, Discovery Award laureate, Arles, France
  • 2008: The Tropics: Views from the Middle of the Globe, Berliner Festspiele, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
  • 2008: Room for Justice, Palais de Justice, Brussels, Belgium; Les Recontres de la Photographie, Arles, France
  • 2008: A Look Away, Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin, Germany
  • 2009: reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Hoffman Gallery, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR; Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, University of Maryland / Baltimore County, College Park, MD
  • 2009: Animalism, National Media Museum, Bradford, UK
  • 2009: Photo Beijing, Beijing, China
  • 2009: Stigmata, Musée de l'Élysée, Lausanne, France, at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, Geneva, Switzerland
  • 2009: 3 stories: Pieter Hugo, Mikhael Subotzky, Paolo Woods, National Audiovisual Centre (CNA), Dudelange, Luxembourg
  • 2009: Unbounded: New Art for a New Century, The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
  • 2009: The Endless Renaissance, Bass Museum, Miami Beach, FL
  • 2009: A Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, UK[56]
  • 2009: Creating Identity: Portraits Today, 21c Museum Hotels, Louisville, KY[57]
  • 2009: Les Rencontres de Bamako Biennial of African Photography, Bamako, Mali
  • 2010: Angkor Photo Festival, Siem Reap, Cambodia
  • 2010: FotoTageTrier 2010, Berlin, Germany
  • 2010: A Celebration of 20 Years, Hereford Photo Festival, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2010: Room for Justice, Avocats Sans Frontières, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 2010: PEEKABOO: Current South Africa, Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland
  • 2010: Halakasha!, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa[58]
  • 2010: Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Ffotogallery, Cardiff, Wales[59]
  • 2010: 1910-2010: From Pierneef to Gugulective, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
  • 2010: Lie of the Land: Representations of the South African Landscape, Iziko Old Town House Museum,[60] Cape Town, South Africa; Sanlam Gallery, Bellville, South Africa
  • 2010: After A, Photo Notes on South Africa, Atri Reportage Festival, Atri, Italy[61]
  • 2010: Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity, Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm/Burlafingen, Southern Germany
  • 2010: This is Our Time, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa[62]
  • 2010: Disquieting Images, Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy[63]
  • 2010: Counterlives, Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC[64]
  • 2010: Sharon Stone in Abuja, Location One, New York, NY[65]
  • 2010: Breaking News: Contemporary photography from the Middle East and Africa, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio Provincia di Modena, Italy[citation needed]
  • 2011: Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK[66]

Collections

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References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Leah Ollman (February 9, 2007), Photography that goes only skin deep Los Angeles Times.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ http://artthrob.co.za/2015/10/20/texx-and-the-city-interview-dookoom-about-dirty-music-video-directed-by-pieter-hugo/
  18. ↑ [1][dead link]
  19. ↑ World press photo award 2005, BBC.co.uk
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ http://www.prixpictet.com/2015/07/shortlist-announced-for-prix-pictet-disorder/
  22. ↑ John Fowles, Wormholes: Essays and Occasional Writings. London: Jonathan Cape, 1998, p. 16.
  23. ↑ Law-Viljoen, Bronwyn. ‘Pieter Hugo: The Critical Zone of Engagement.’ Aperture. Spring 2007.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  37. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  39. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  40. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  42. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  43. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  45. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  46. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  47. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  48. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  49. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  50. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  51. ↑ "Portrait intime de l'Afrique du Sud par Pieter Hugo" par Stéphanie Pioda dans Artistik Rezo 19 janvier 2015.
  52. ↑ https://issuu.com/picturelibrary/docs/south_african_art_times_february_20
  53. ↑ http://www.npg.org.uk/about/press/news-release-unseen-pieter-hugo-photographs
  54. ↑ https://priskapasquer.com/pieter-hugo-kin/
  55. ↑ http://stevenson.info/exhibitions/hugo/index_1994.html
  56. ↑ [2][dead link]
  57. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  58. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  59. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  60. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  61. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  62. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  63. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  64. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  65. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  66. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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