Samuel Fosso, who uses his own body in color and black-and-white self-portraits, signals his complicity in the caricature he consummately performs-the flamboyant "chief" or the "liberated American woman." In his series African Spirits, Fosso assumes the guise of famous African and African-American personalities, who are well known from the popular archive of their much-publicized photographs. At once instantly identifiable and oddly disjunctive, his impersonations recall both the icons he re-creates and the lasting influence of their recognizability as images.
Marcus Edouard Reinhardt
Samuel Fosso Self Portrait, from "African Spirits", 2008 Samuel Fosso Mémoire d'un ami, 2000
Doreen Caven, Joan Caven, Isioma Chukwani
Samuel Fosso Le rêve de mon grand-père, 2003
Event photographs taken by Polina Neshpor
