Keita

Question 1

Keita overview

Answer 1

Started out as a carpenter, did photography too and then solely photography. Commercial photographer, artist and official photographer for government
At first his work was about pleasing the customers and make them look good
Renowned portraitist, esp studio portraiture
In Bamako, was one of the first photographers.
Opened own studio in ‘42, in New Bamako - when it was independent and no longer under colonial rule?
International recognition in early ‘90’s

Question 2

Social and historical context

Answer 2

Mali was colonized by France, he worked before and after Malian Independence.
Operated within a colonial and post colonial context

Question 3

What is modernity

Answer 3

Modes of life or organization in euro per form about getting seventeenth century onwards and which subsequently became more or less worldwide in their influence

Move from primitive civilization

Question 4

What is modernism characterized voyage of industrialization, capitalism and nation state

Answer 4

Age of industrialization, capitalism and nation state

Question 5

Modernity and the photograph

Answer 5

Photography was NB in modernity because it was the age of mechanics and industrialization
Photo is a mechanical reproduction of people, place object, etc

Question 6

What is identity

Answer 6

Individual sense of placement within the world

Meaning one attaches to oneself as reflection of answers like Who Am I and Who Am I To Be

Question 7

More on identity - Hall

Answer 7

It is a production, never complete, always in progress, a,ways constituted within not outside of representation
Part of critique of notion that identity is fixed,ms table and whole

Question 8

More on hall (sorry guys)

Answer 8

He disagrees that identity is fixed, stable and whole, and we share traits with those of similar cultures
Says that the modern identity is fragmented, incomplete, fractured, subject to radical historification and constantly in progress and change

Question 9

What is representation

Answer 9

Production of meaning through language and is essential to the way that culture is produced and exchanged.

Question 10

What is ethnography

Answer 10

Methods involving direct and sustained social contact with agents
Methods include participant-observation and intensive interviews
Reflects the circumstantial encounter of the voluntarily displaced anthropologist and the involuntary localized other

Question 11

Question of voice in ethnography

Answer 11

Who is speaking?
Does the ethnographer speak for the native, the native speak for the ethnographer or does only the selected native speak?

Question 12

Ethnography, the photograph and Africa

Answer 12

Visual documentation lends credence to myth, and scientific theory enhances its power and extends its reach.
Sarah Baartman image

Question 13

Eth, photo and Africa again sorry guys

Answer 13

Those we produce the images are creating and have been part of systems of meaning that provided so called proof of the INHERENT DIFFERENCE AND INFERIORITY OF AFRICAN PEOPLE AND THOSE OF AFRICAN DESCENT

Question 14

Intro of camera to Africa

Answer 14

Arrived in 1840
Used to fulfill voyeuristic yearnings of armchair photographers back home
Used by missionaries in saving the nations from their savagery
Anthropologists for so called objective studies of African societies and cultures
Scientists to document essential difference of Africans
Justification for colonialism in Africa

Used on postcards, images, used to objectify, robbing the sitter of subjectivity and individualism through reducing them to a type
Stereotyping and just seen as a “people”, no differentiation

Question 15

What did postcards and photographs do

Answer 15

Affirmed visual codes and stereotypes through their imagery
Distribution of postcards and photos disseminated the stereotypes.
Functioned as colonial propaganda and documents of so called primitive cultures

Question 16

Keita and the sitter

Answer 16

Portraits were constructed in collaboration with the sitter
Used certain items to indicate their role in society
For self definition and self fashioning
Always made to look good, that’s what they paid him for
The pictures weren’t about the conception of the sitter, rather about agency and them dictating how they want to be seen
The images were seen as a way to show the sitter as beautiful
Did so by using certain objects, like swing machines and musical instruments
Women keen to identify themselves with beauty and wealth - clothing jewellery and hairstyles. Also, long fingers

Question 17

How do portraits function on the level of props, costume, accessories and backdrop in relation to countering the ethnographic image?

Answer 17

Portraiture and objects used to show status and break away from social norms, embody social ideals, construct idealized identities, living our dreams and aspirations that they can’t achieve in their every day life
Used different textiles, clashing and juxtaposed materials and textures, colors, mix of traditional and contemporary dress, consumers goods in symmetrical composition, constructed posed and high contrast
- combination of self consciousness and pride in presentation

Question 18

Backdrops used in Keita’s images

Answer 18

Created fictional setting, like interiors and street scenes, and suggested a location and narrative as well as decorative element.
Mounted decorative textiles against wall of his courtyard to do outdoor portraits
NB to his aesthetic - clothes clashes with the backdrop to create graphic explosion and pattern and design

Question 19

The images

Answer 19

Serious
Looking straight at the camera or into the distance
All untitled

Question 20

Point of this shit

Answer 20

Keita as an example of representing modernity and the self fashioning of the individual in Africa, in opposition to ethnographic representation from Europe. Done through a series of stylized tropes and stages or posed portraits.