ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2023

On view is a selection from a series of seven, large scale, silver gelatin photographs collectively titled Defining Self Sufficiency (1993) portrays the artist in his Glasgow kitchen. Unprecedented within the history of African self-portraiture, Bamgboyé comfortably photographs himself in the nude, multiple times present in his images with the use of overlayed exposures. Surrounded by his quotidian domesticity, the artist exudes a level of ease and content, countering our usual projections onto the ‘black male body’, while his manifold presence points towards a multiplicity of selves.

The lens-based artist (b. 1963, Odo-Eku, Nigeria) is part of a group of Nigerian/ British artists- including Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Yinka Shonibare, Chris Ofili and the theoretician Olu Oguibe—who made their mark in London during that decade. Critically supported, Bamgboyé’s work was included in Catherine David’s Documenta X (1997) as well as many exhibitions foundational to the now central discourse around our relationship to ‘the Other’, the history and lingering effects of colonialism, and a more expansive reading of Modernism. These include, among others, In/Sight—African Photographers 1940–Present, Guggenheim (1996); Johannesburg Biennale (1997); Die Anderen Modernen, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (1997); and The Short Century, MCAChicago and traveling (2001).