Forthcoming exhibition
Pieter Hugo: Portraits
30 May - 5 July 08
Open Eye Gallery is proud to present the first substantial UK exhibition by South African artist Pieter Hugo.
Self-taught photographer and film-maker Hugo makes documentary projects in locations around the world but has a particular interest in developing countries. This exhibition focuses on three bodies of work, all of which use portraiture to call into question our understanding of who we are and how we see others.
Hugo's portraits of people with albinism were created between 2002 and 2005 as part of a wider project about people whose appearance is in some way unusual or unfamiliar. Albinism (from the Latin albus, "white") is an inherited condition characterized, usually, by a lack of melanin pigment in the eyes, skin and hair. Hugo's closely-framed, uncompromising portraits explore our responses to physical difference and the meanings we attach to the terms 'black' and 'white'.
Hugo's portraits of judges were made in 2005, during the final months of the longest-running court case in Botswana's history. A group of Bushmen had accused the government of illegally evicting them in order to exploit the diamond and mineral potential of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. In a landmark judgement, the three-member High Court (which included Justice Unity Dow, shown here alongside two of her colleagues) ruled that the Bushmen were entitled to live and hunt on their ancestral lands.
'Gadawan Kura' - The Hyena Men is a study of an extended family of minstrels and healers from Abuja, Nigeria. The troupe stages performances in dusty streets with their hyenas, snakes and monkeys; they also sell fetishes and herbal medicines. Hugo writes that he was fascinated by "the hybridisation of the urban and the wild, and the paradoxical relationship that the handlers have with their animals - sometimes doting and affectionate, sometimes brutal and cruel."
Pieter Hugo: Portraits was produced in collaboration with Autograph ABP.
