Edson chagas biography

Edson Chagas

Angolan photographer (born )

Edson Chagas

Born (age&#;47&#;48)

Luanda, Angola

OccupationPhotographer

Edson Chagas (born ) is an Angolan photographer. Trained as a photojournalist, his works explore cities and consumerism. His Found Not Taken series resituates abandoned objects elsewhere within cities. His other large-format photograph series play on tropes related to African masks. Oikonomos consists of self-portraits of Chagas with shopping bags over his head as symbols of consumerism in Luanda, his home city. The passport-style photographs of Tipo Passe show models wearing nondescript, contemporary clothes and traditional African masks.

Chagas represented Angola at the Venice Biennale, for which he won its Golden Lion for best national pavilion. His works have also exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and Brooklyn Museum.

Early life

Edson Chagas was born in Luanda, Angola, in [1] His father studied aeronautics and his mother worked at a supermarket. Chagas and his brother were raised in Maianga, where his immediate family continues to live. He lived through the Angolan Civil War and recalled the need to be resourceful due to scarcity of goods. His father sent him and his brother to Portugal for safety during the war, where they moved several times. Chagas wanted to train as a cameraman but the class was focused on photography, not video. He began taking photos with his grandmother's compact camera and photography became a means for Chagas to understand himself, communicate, and stimulate thoughts about memories. Chagas moved to the United Kingdom[2] and received a degree in photojournalism from the London College of Communication. He also studied documentary photography at the University of Wales, Newport.[3] He said it took him many years to decide to professionalize as a photographer.[2]

Career

Chagas has described his work as being interested how identity and consumerism are perceived in society.[2]

Chagas represented Angola at the country's first Venice Biennale national pavilion in , curated by Paula Nascimento and Stephano Rabolli Pansera. His exhibition placed on the floor giveaway, poster-sized photographs of discarded objects positioned in relation to weathered architecture in the Angolan capital, Luanda.[4] These poster stacks were in "stark juxtaposition" with the opulent, Catholic decorations of the host, Palazzo Cini,[4] which had been closed for the previous two decades.[5]The New York Times called the pavilion a "breakout star" of the Biennale, and it won the biennial's top prize, the Golden Lion for best national pavilion.[4] The photographs on display came from Chagas's larger series, Found Not Taken,[6] which included conceptually similar photographs from cities—in addition to Luanda—where the photographer had spent time: London and Newport, Wales.[3] The curators had asked Chagas to display only the photographs from Luanda for the Biennale, which he found acceptable since it didn't take the series out of context.[6]

His Oikonomos series of large-format self-portraits with shopping bags over his head were intended to hide his identity behind symbols of globalized capitalism and secondhand consumerism in Luanda[7][8][9] as secondhand goods permeate African consumer culture.[3] This series was later shown at the Brooklyn Museum's Disguise: Masks and Global African Art exhibition.[8][10]Hyperallergic highlighted the performativity in the artist wearing a Barack Obama bag over his head as kitschy, funny, and like another persona.[10]

In at Paris Photo, Chagas showed a large-scale portrait photograph series, Tipo Passe, depicting models dressed in nondescript, contemporary attire and traditional African masks.[11][3][12] The clothes came from street markets and import retailers, while the masks came from a private collection.[3] The prints were made in editions of seven.[11] He showed selections at exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art's Ocean of Images: New Photography contemporary photography exhibition[3], the art fair.[9], the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in [12] and the Tate Modern in [13]

In and , Chagas captured photographs of the abandoned Fábrica Irmãos Carneiro textile factory in Luanda, which he showed in Lisbon in The interior photos show textured close-ups of its abandoned machines, cobwebs, dust, and rust. Others show the degradation of furniture, wall paint, and the building's facade.[14]

As of , Chagas continues to live in Luanda and works as the image editor for Expansão, an Angolan newspaper.[3]

Selected exhibitions

Solo

Group

  • Ocean of Images: New Photography , Museum of Modern Art, New York, [15]
  • The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., [16]
  • From Africa to the Americas: Face-To-Face Picasso, Past and Present, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, [17]
  • A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography, Tate Modern, London, [13]

References

  1. ^Angerame, Nicola Davide (June 3, ). "Angola Leone D'Oro. Buona la prima". Artribune. Archived from the original on March 26, Retrieved February 10,
  2. ^ abcJocks, Heinz-Norbert[in German] (). "Mehr introspektiv. Ein Gespräch mit Edson Chagas". Kunstforum international (in German). : – ISSN&#;
  3. ^ abcdefgSebambo, Khumo (September 16, ). "Edson Chagas' photographs are simple and striking". Design Indaba. Archived from the original on February 11, Retrieved February 9,
  4. ^ abcdMcGarry, Kevin (June 7, ). "The Venice Biennale's Rookies of the Year". New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on November 9, Retrieved February 8,
  5. ^Cembalest, Robin (June 6, ). "A Gallery of Venice Biennale Artists". ARTnews. Archived from the original on March 28, Retrieved February 9,
  6. ^ abSousa, Suzana (May 28, ). "C& in conversation with Edson Chagas: 'Most of my work is series. It's a method that reflects how I feel things.'". Contemporary And. Archived from the original on February 11, Retrieved February 9,
  7. ^Gbadamosi, Nosmot (May 10, ). "New York showcases stunning African art". CNN. Archived from the original on February 11, Retrieved February 10,
  8. ^ abKedmey, Karen (May 3, ). "The Brooklyn Museum Is Transforming the Way We Think about African Art". Artsy. Archived from the original on February 2, Retrieved January 29,
  9. ^ abStern, Melissa (May 6, ). "Focusing on Photo Portraits at New York's Contemporary African Art Fair". Hyperallergic. Archived from the original on February 11, Retrieved February 10,
  10. ^ abRodney, Seph (September 12, ). "What a Show About Masks Might Really Be Disguising". Hyperallergic. Archived from the original on February 11, Retrieved February 10,
  11. ^ abReyburn, Scott (November 14, ). "In Paris, Photography and Old Masters Meet". The New York Times. ISSN&#; Archived from the original on September 15,
  12. ^ abEverett-Green, Robert (June 11, ). "Montreal exhibit pairs Picasso with the kinds of African art he appropriated". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on July 5, Retrieved January 11,
  13. ^ abFreeman, Laura (July 4, ). "A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography review — find the playfulness (if you can)". The Times. Retrieved January 11,
  14. ^ abBranquinho, Laurinda (October 18, ). "Factory of Disposable Feelings: Edson Chagas no Hangar". Umbigo. Retrieved January 11,
  15. ^Kedmey, Karen (November 9, ). "MoMA and Guggenheim Take Stock of Photography in ". Artsy. Archived from the original on February 11, Retrieved February 10,
  16. ^Moore, Allison (). "The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists". Critical Interventions. 10 (1): doi/ ISSN&#; &#; via Taylor & Francis.
  17. ^Matei, Adrienne (May 10, ). "Picasso and Beyond at the Musée des Beaux Arts". NUVO. Retrieved January 11,

Further reading

  • de Oliveira, Ana Balona (). "Journal of Uncollectable Journeys: Edson Chagas's Found Not Taken Series and Other Works". Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art (40): 44– doi/ ISSN&#;
  • Moses, Serubiri (). "Edson Chagas' Photographic Realism". The Routledge Companion to African Diaspora Art History. Routledge. ISBN&#;.

External links