Lunch & Learn: Yves Chatap on "Photo Cameroon"

Join the Fowler and Cameroonian art curator and critic Yves Chatap for a deeper dive into the history of photography and studio practice in Cameroon. Using a selection from 110 black-and-white portraits by Jacques Toussele, Joseph Chila, and Samuel Finlak presented in Photo Cameroon: Studio Portraiture 1970-1990s, Chatap will discuss the relationship between fútbol and masculinity, the social benefits of signaling one’s religious piety, and the meaning of textiles worn by the sitters. 

Yves Chatap is a Cameroonian curator, publisher, and art critic based in Paris, France. He served as guest curator for the Treignac Project (2011) and S A V V Y Contemporary in Berlin (2013), and as Associate Curator for the 10th Rencontres de Bamako Biennale Africaine de la Photographie (2015). He was also one of the curators for the Louis Roederer Discovery Award at Les Rencontres d’Arles, 2019. Chatap is the 2021 guest curator for Jeu de Paume LAB. He is currently the artistic director of La clairière d’Eza Boto, conceived around the work of Cameroonian writer Mongo Beti. Chatap received the ACASA award for Curatorial Excellence in 2018 for the exhibition [Re]Generations. His writings are regularly published in magazines, exhibition catalogues, and artist monographs.

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Image: Joseph Chila (b. 1948, Mbouda, Cameroon), Man displaying his Gandoura robes, 2021 inkjet print from digital scan of original 1986 negative; © Joseph Chila