More photos by Samuel Fosso, from 'Autoportrait,' published by @steidlverlag & @walthercollect⠀ ⠀ Edited with text and interview by Okwui Enwezor. Foreword by Artur Walther, Jean-Marc Patras. Text by Quentin Bajac, Yves Chatap, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Oluremi C. Onabanjo, Terry Smith, Claire Staebler, James Thomas.⠀ ⠀ Okwui Enwezor comments, in conversation with Fosso, "Your relationship to photography has something much deeper, a more personal motivation. From the start it was autobiographical; it had to do with the conditions of your life and how to document that life as it was being transformed. But what you are very well known for are photographic images in which your studio became⠀ a theater, a liberated space where you played with codes of representation of gender, sexuality, masculinity, and fashion. This liberated space that was your studio produced some of the most unique and singular examples⠀ of studio practice, and I am here thinking of artists such as John Coplans, Pierre Molinier, Van Leo, Cindy Sherman, Yasumasa Morimura, and others who had also made themselves their own subjects. But in your case, you were not so much making self-portraits as you were invested in working with invented characters, with you as an avatar. This is perhaps why your work has been compared most often with that of Sherman."⠀ ⠀ Please order from your local independent #bookstorehero — many are reopening or offering curbside pickup! A list of #blackownedbookstores is here: https://manylink.co/@artbook⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ @samuelfosso #samuelfosso #samuelfossoautoportrait⠀ https://www.instagram.com/p/CDCsN_cpTc2/?igshid=17670ujnz2poh