Insistent Presence: Giulia Paoletti

Host Gianofer Fields and art history scholar Giulia Paoletti discuss the history of photography in Senegal, its meaning as a medium used in everyday life, and its use by a range of artists. Paoletti highlights the practice of xoymet, the creation of photo walls for weddings, and the work of artists like Ibrahima Thiam, who have reworked the historical tradition in new ways.

Meet Me at the Chazen is a podcast about the the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art, the largest collecting museum in the Big Ten. As we report what’s happening here, we'll also explore what it means to be an art museum at a public university and how art museums can help enrich and strengthen the communities they serve. Meet Me at the Chazen theme and incidental music is “Swinging at the Pluto Lounge,” composed and performed by Marvin Tate and friends, and is used with permission of the artists.

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Transcript

[machine-generated transcript]

Gianofer Fields  00:01
 Meet Me at the Chazen. I'm your host Gianofer Fields. Giulia Paoletti is an assistant professor in art history at the University of Virginia. She was invited by Margaret Nagawa, guest curator of Insistent Presence: Contemporary African Art From the Chazen Collection, to present a lecture based on her research on the history of photography in Senegal, in West Africa. For over a decade, Paoletti has been studying the relationship between the individual photography and the community.

Giulia Paoletti  00:31
 When Margaret is asked to ask me to give a talk, I've been thinking and thinking what I could present on so I wanted to because I knew that the exhibition included the work of Ibrahima [Thiam], of Malick [Welli], and it's around this idea of insistent presence. So the idea of figuration, the human figure, but also relations, right, between figures and within communities, across communities. And for me, photography can talk a lot about that is a lot about self-presentation is a lot about articulation, our relation with people, our relations with the world. And so I wanted to talk about the based on my research on photography in Senegal, these relations, so photography as an art of relations and focus as a case study on this practice of the xoymet, that I'll discuss, which is a practice of creating these photo walls with all these images that are borrowed from the community for a bride's before, before a wedding for brides. And the room, it would be fully decorated. And both Malick and Ibrahima have reworked this historical practice.

Gianofer Fields  01:43
 And I also want to say that it's interesting you talk about this practice in terms of weddings, it's also a funeral practice, to a graduation practice, well, for us in the States, where you compile all these photographs. And it's sometimes kind of strange, because you're walking to an event you like, okay, wedding funeral graduation, going on here? Because it's that same practice, or it's a similar practice with taking all these photographs. Maybe not necessarily so much of the community, but definitely the person, whoever's the star of the day, taking all their photographs, and placing them on a wall, like a timeline of their history.
 
 Giulia Paoletti  02:26
 See, this is exactly why I love photography, and why I've started researching photography, because to me differently from any other medium, photography is a medium that each of us, our grandma, children, or cousins or friends, use every day. So much of our relations are expressed through it and work through photographs. We look at photographs all the time. It's such a powerful medium. And so that's also what I experienced in Senegal; you go in a family's home, and the first thing they would do is open up the album and talk about you know, their family. And so people love photographs and love to talk about photographs, so for me that was so rich.
 
 Gianofer Fields  03:07
 So then Giulia, are you focusing on the person, or the objects in the photograph? My background is art history, material culture, so I had to ask.
 
 Giulia Paoletti  03:17
 Good question. I tried to do both. And I think for me, with photography it's important to do both. So both to see it as a representation of someone and so see the photograph as a constructed image. So how is this person represented? What did the photographer choose to include or exclude from the frame, but then at the end of the day, the photograph is an object, which is in most cases is meant to be touched, held, used, broken, forgotten, and to me tracing the history of the object is as important as paying attention to its formal qualities. That's my method for what I study.
 
 Gianofer Fields  03:54
 And why Senegal, why did you choose that area?
 
 Giulia Paoletti  03:58
 Well, so for the longest time, so I was hesitating actually whether to do research in Senegal, or Nigeria, on the histories of photography, because they both have very long histories, very important for, like photographers, and history of art making and modernism that has shaped, you know, the whole continent and well beyond. Eventually, I decided to go for Senegal because I just fell in love with the images. And I just, I worked with these photographers. I met Ibrahima as I was starting my research. And actually, I interviewed him because at the beginning, I thought I was going to my research was going to be on modern and contemporary Photography. So I asked to meet him for an interview to ask him, that was like back in 2010. And when we met, he came along with his own collection of photographs. And that was the first meeting and I was it blew my mind because it was actually kind of rare to find an art-based, contemporary artist who's also equally invested and interested in the history of photography, in collecting but also knowing and researching what the history was. So that to me, that's what makes Ibrahima's work so interesting because he's a contemporary artist. But he's always thinking back or alongside its history of photography in Senegal.
 
 Gianofer Fields  05:25
 There's a lot of history in the work. It is a very, the images are very contemporary, but there's a lot of there's different histories that you can read into it. And so I'm wondering if you could tell me, Giulia, what are you seeing when you're looking at these works? Describe them for me, and tell me what you're seeing, how they’re, I don't want to say affecting you in the sense that they change you or transform, I guess it could be transformative in a way. But I'm really interested in what you see, and then your reaction to what you're seeing when you look at the work.
 
 Giulia Paoletti  05:55
 So what we're looking at here are three prints. So what artists will call a sort of triptych, three prints put next to each other, we see this wall of like a notion that is in front of us and at the center. We see the head of a man, of a Black man, of a Senegalese man, are kind of swimming moving, we do not see their face specifically. But we see them like as a solitary figure in this ocean. And so obviously, because there are three we see them in relation to each other, there is a sort of like a narrative that these photographs are capturing in some ways. The man there is not only the man but there is a calabash. How do you call that in English?
 
 Gianofer Fields  06:43
 Oh, gourd bowl.
 
 Giulia Paoletti  06:45
 Gourd bowl, thank you very much. And so the figure is interacting with that. And so Ibrahima here is centering a figure. But we don't really see them. And so it's a both about representation and an abstraction, if you'd like and in fact, is not representing a specific individual. But a genie, and this is part of his larger work focusing on these spirits, water spirits, that are so important in various Senegalese cities. So once again, Ibra is working in the contemporary, but he's looking for histories, theories that are about Senegal, and he wants to refer them back, bring them back to the surface.
 
 Gianofer Fields  07:28
 So when I was a million years ago, when I was first studying art history, and we were talking about photography, there was a huge discussion on whether or not photography was art, considered artwork? I say it is, and I will fight anybody who says it's not. So is that part of and this may be an unfair question, or it might not even make any sense, we'll just see what happens. But is that part of a way of silencing voices that may not have another way to express themselves? Is that some sort of gatekeeping? And what is and what isn't considered art? And who gets to make that decision? And it's, did you see any pushback? Have you noticed that there's pushback? You know, when it comes to photography and major galleries in the work that's represented?
 
 Giulia Paoletti  08:13
 Absolutely. Jeffrey Batchen, who's a photo historian often described photography, as you know, always being, so the art field, fine art, resisting photography, as a field, as an art form. And you know, African photography then is further resisted as an art form because it literally entered museums in the West way much later, like in the 1990s. So actually, for me, it's there has been always very important to study this history, this object, as art. And this is not to become elitist, or to kind of prove that, you know, or force this revisionist history or enter their story. But it is a question of taking these objects seriously. And taking the artists who produce them seriously, their history seriously. And understanding again,  this long history of image making, of art practices, art communities, art curating, and trying to recuperate those vocabularies, those methods.
 
 Gianofer Fields  09:21
 One of the things that Serubiri Moses and I talked about was the idea that the artist, as photographer, is not necessarily seen as historian because of whatever background and paper they do or do not have. But then you have historians, who can, who want to read the photograph, as part of a timeline in history.
 
 Giulia Paoletti  09:46
 As a timeline in history, as a direct representation of the artists the subjectivity, identity, you know, fixing in some ways, whereas I think it's more interesting when the dialogue is open, when those frames are open, and that's So what I love about Ibrahima. Ibrahima is an artist, is a collector, he in his practice, he has shifted and on so many things. He's a photographer, but also, he's done installation. So he's worked on decolonizing the museum in Senegal. So it's such a large practice that pushes boundaries and ask us to release that control, you know, in Who's In, Who's Out? How you can do it, who they are, who does it says all these subjects are.
 
 Gianofer Fields  10:31
 So your lecture is going to be focused on photographs, and the history of photography in Senegal. So what are your key points? What do you want people to take away from this lecture? You’re going to have a full crowd, because people here show up and show out when we have lectures here at the Chazen. And it's makes me very happy. So what sort of, are you thinking of taking the audience on a historical journey? How are you going to approach this? And what are some of the key things you want people to take away from the from the lecture?
 
 Giulia Paoletti  11:02
 So I definitely want to give a sense of the wealth and the breadth of the history of photography in Senegal, as an example of the history of photography in the continent. Up to the present day, for most, it is a surprise to hear that African countries have a history of photography that is as long as the one that is in Paris, in London, in Rome, in New York. And so for me, it's important to give a sense of that long and rich history. And the beauty of those images, and secondly, show how, if we study this history, it it offers wonderful opportunity to rethink of what photography is what it looks like, how do we tell these histories? And so that's what I'm hoping to do.
 
 Gianofer Fields  11:50
 So then in your study, and your focus on photography? Are there milestones that you've seen and changes? And how people represent maybe even technique? Or did you see any changes that were based on what's available in the medium and the tools and techniques? And what would you call it supplies? What do you call that? Medium? Again, medium?
 
 Giulia Paoletti  12:12
 Yeah, no, definitely, photography is one of those mediums that changed so dramatically, we tend to think of photography as one thing, one field, but actually so completely different, like the first objects that were made us photography, with daguerreotype, there were single objects, it was one of a kind, it was very time consuming, expensive, complex to make. And then you know, you fast forward in the 1860s, you have carte de visite, there are multiple, they're cheaper. They're meant to be used, and then you have, you know, snapshots in the 1900s, where you can be the photographer, you can release the shutter, you can create your photo album, and then you know, and he continues in that way, and then photography becoming an art. So in my book, I did not have the interest or, you know, I was not invested in telling a linear comprehensive survey, it's not possible, of photography in Senegal. So I focused on four moments actually, of that history that to me complicate, again, what we think of us photography, and as African photography, specifically.

Gianofer Fields  13:22
 What are those photos? First of all, before we forget, what's the title of your book? And then what are those four moments, if you want to share, or you could do that 'you have to read my book!'.
 
 Giulia Paoletti  13:30
 So the book is entitled Portrait and Place: Photography in Senegal, 1840 to 1960. And so the four moments are like the beginnings with the earliest photographs taken in Senegal in the 1840s. And actually, they are some of the oldest surviving photographs from West Africa. And we have very unexpected example, let me just give you one. The earliest studio that was opened in Senegal was not by a French, was not by an African, but was by an African American, Augustus Washington in 1862. That's the earliest recorded photographic studio that we know. So just that I think, to me is a good example to show that if we study if we pay attention to this history, so many of our assumptions transform. The second chapter focuses on the interaction between lithographs and glass paintings and photographs with the popularization of photography and also here, in an unexpected way, through Sufi devotional practices. So I argue that in Senegal it is Islamic devotional portraits that popularized a media genre that did not exist before. So Islam popularized portraiture. Third, I look at a once-anonymous photographer I reconnected with the family who, like, re-owned that archive and that history. And the last one looks at modernist photography in Senegal, looking at not only urban, the famous one like Mama Casset, that has been celebrated, but a rural one, photographer working in the interior also complicating what is modernism? What does modernism look like? What does liberation and independence look like?
 
 Gianofer Fields  15:22
 I'm wondering, if you're also seeing people, I don't want to say all, I keep saying I don't want to say it, but I'm gonna say it, people changing, this is how I can get to it. Much like we have Instagram now. And we can use filters to change ourselves to do all these different things. Do you see people changing, sort of how they're representing themselves within photographs, going from maybe something that's really candid to something that's more stylized: this is the this is the real me, as opposed to this is the me I want the world to think I am, how I want to present myself to the world?
 
 Giulia Paoletti  16:00
 Absolutely. I think those are the two extremes that, to me, actually always coexist in photography, you know, as people experiment in the self-fashioning in the artificial versus, you know, reality of who we are, I think, with photography, at the very beginning, it was such a rare opportunity that if you had one portrait taken in your life, it would be such a serious business, you would wear your best clothes, it would be such a stylized, idealized representation of yourself for posterity. And later, I think there's much more playfulness, and kind of candidness. And, you know, because you can take many photos.
 
 Gianofer Fields  16:42
 Are there images and practices that surprised you? Are you do you see something that just like, sets you back on your heels? Because it feels to me like you've been very diligent and intense with your studies. So I'm wondering if you still get that surprise, that joy?
 
 Giulia Paoletti  17:00
 Yeah, no, absolutely. I have to say, you know, I am. So I've been so interested in this history. And I continue to study it and research it, because it surprises me all the time. And I think what I've discovered as a researcher is that it's so much about learning and so much about unlearning things that I've been told growing up. And so actually, the surprise comes also often as I stay and listen and hear people like Ibrahim explaining this history, looking through the images with them and learning me to look beyond what I know.
 
 Gianofer Fields  17:37
 So then how does it, has it changed how you look at your own photographs and your family photographs?
 
 Giulia Paoletti  17:42
 Oh, that's a good question. Unexpected one. I'm not sure, I have to think about it for a second. Hmm.
 
 Gianofer Fields  17:49
 Because I'm also wondering, like you said, when you've met Ibrahima, he brought a photo book. Do you, have you adopted those practices? Are you now meeting people through images?
 
 Giulia Paoletti  18:01
 Ah, hmm, that's such a good question. Yeah, I think I'm much more aware of the power of photography, and I see how it touches me how it connects me with my family with my where I come from, you know, how I build my relation. So I definitely am more aware. But I have to keep thinking about this question.
 
 Gianofer Fields  18:24
 We'll check back in. Is there anything you want to tell me I didn't ask you?
 
 Giulia Paoletti  18:28
 Ah, no, I mean, this is such a wonderful opportunity to be here. Maybe the only last thing that I'd like to say is that so much of what I'm going to share tonight, and is because I had so many people like Ibra, or others sharing with me. So this history, and so it's part of a larger conversation. Yeah. And I look forward to feedback and questions and other perspectives on the topic.
 
 Gianofer Fields  18:59
 You've been listening to Meet Me at the Chazen and our guest, Giulia Paoletti, is an assistant professor in our history at the University of Virginia. She was invited to present a lecture based on her research on the history of photography in Senegal, in West Africa at UW Madison's Chazen Museum of Art. Meet Me at the Chazen is a production of the Chazen Museum of Art on the campus of UW–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information about the museum, its collections, and exhibitions, visit chazen.wisc.edu. I'm your host, Gianofer Fields. Thank you for listening.