“From Maputo” / “De Maputo” at A Pequena Galeria (The Little Gallery), Lisboa

Photographs by José Cabral and Luís Basto, with Moira Forjaz and

Rogério (two small tributes)

Lisbon. 26.06 - 14.07.2013

In the space between pioneer photographer Ricardo Rangel and the new

photographers who have taken part in BES Photo and Gulbenkian’s Next Future –

Mário Macilau, Mauro Pinto and Filipe Branquinho –, there are the works of those

who differed from what we might refer to as the Mozambican school of

photography, the photojournalistic and humanist tradition, which, incidentally, has

quite a few good authors in its ranks.

JOSÉ CABRAL (b. 1952, Maputo) is the man behind the rupture, having instilled

the desire for a personal discourse in Mozambique’s photography collective, a

discourse based upon a wide knowledge of international photography and in broad

cultural interests, going beyond the national and African framework.

The autobiographical reference in his last three

exhibitions – “As Linhas da Minha Mão” (The

Lines of My Hand), 2006 Maputo, Photofesta;

“Anjos Urbanos / Urban Angels”, 2009 at P4

Photography, Lisbon - http://2009/05/condicao-

humana.html - and Maputo, “Espelhos

Quebrados” (Broken Mirrors), 2012, Maputo –

is a courageous contribution to bringing to

light the role and place of the beholder, and in

doing so, in exposing his own history as well,

is a lucid artistic intervention in the present

events of a rapidly changing country. Both

during and after the collective dynamic, with

its unforeseen and often terrible setbacks, it

was time for each artist to question himself, as

well as the sense of a common path.

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In “De Maputo” there are works of those three exhibitions on display: personal

anthology, children (Cabral’s and the other people’s, with an obvious

differentiation in skin colour and social means) and the near self-portraits

signalling courses of life and relationships.

José Cabral is now the cultural reference and the unruly master of young

photographers, with an extensive body of work dating back to 1975, when he

began working as a photographer at the Instituto Nacional de Cinema (National

Film Institute), followed by few years as an agency photojournalist, a newspaper

photographer for Notícias e and Domingo, with Rangel, in 1981-82, and, later, a

professor at the Centro de Formação Fotográfica (Centre for Photographic

Education), between 1986 and 1990. In 1996 he published his first book, Guerra

da Água (Water War), on Ébano Multimédia, in association with a Licínio de

Azevedo film of the same name (in colour, with printing problems). He has tried to

get by as a photographer in Maputo, which is no easy feat.

LUÍS BASTO (b. 1969, Maputo) is also a self-taught photographer, with a unique

and recognizable language, present in international collective shows such as

“Africa Remix” (2004) and Okwui Enwezor’s “Snap Judgments – new positions

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i n c o n t e m p o r a r y A f r i c a n

photography” (2006), in which he was

Mozambique’s sole representative.

While building a large database of

documentary footage of the country

www.mozambiquephotos/Portfolio.html

Luís Basto has also been a photographer

of the city and the of the ability to survive

that lies therein: “The mpty years are

decades gone; with them the fate of a

generation who had to fight war for other

men’s reasons. Many born into peace

have no memory of the fragmented lives

that flooded the city as wandering souls.

Where we came from and where we are

now is framed not as much by time as by

the dimensions of city space. We are in the windows, behind the doors, reflected

citizens in all our contradictions.” – Berry Bickle, in Luís Basto fotógrafo /

photographer, Éditions de l’Oeil, Montreuil, 2004, http://

www.editionsdeloeil.com/index.

Going back in time, the exhibition includes two works by two authors who, in

different ways, brought experience back from Rhodesia and South Africa to

Maputo so as to develop original and independent careers in the years after

independence, which they later interrupted.

ROGÉRIO (Pereira) was a photographer and photojournalist working in South

Africa (1968-1977), Mozambique (1973-1979) and Portugal (1979-1987), whose

formally demanding, politically committed and restless production stood out. Born

in Lisbon in 1942, he was seven years old when he moved to Mozambique, and 45

when he died of cancer in Setúbal, Portugal, in 1987. In 1973 he exhibited at the

Núcleo de Arte (Center for Art) Ricardo Rangel and Basil Breakey. In 1981 he

showed his work at the Gulbenkian Foundation (“Momentos”).

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In 1990 he was honoured with a retrospective show in two parts at the Associação

Moçambicana de Fotografia (Mozambican Association of Photography), in

collaboration with Ricardo Rangel, Kok Nam and José Pinto de Sá, who wrote the

accompanying text. “Verdade” (Truth), another retrospective of his work, was part

of the first edition of Photofesta, in 2002.

MOIRA FORJAZ is the author of Muipiti, Ilha

de Moçambique (Muipiti, Island of

Mozambique) – text by Amélia Muge, Imprensa

Nacional, 1983, published without her

supervision). Born in Zimbabwe in 1942, she

visited Lourenço Marques / Maputo regularly

since 1961. Holding a degree in Graphic Arts

from the Johannesburg School of Arts and

Design, Moira Forjaz worked as a

photojournalist in Southern Africa since 1964,

and lived in Maputo between 1975 and 1988.

She helped create the Associação Moçambicana

de Fotografia (Mozambican Photography

Association), in 1981, and directed two films in

that same year.

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Other publications: Ruth First, Black Gold: The Mozambican Miner, Proletarian

and Peasant, St. Martin's Press, New York / Harvester Press, Brighton, 1983

(photographs) and Images of a Revolution: Mural Art in Mozambique, Zimbabwe

Publishing House, Harare, 1983 (Albie Sacks, text, Moira Forjaz, Susan Meiselas,

photographs). Moira Forjaz went back to showing her work in 2009, “Kukumbula

(Memórias) 1976 – 1986”, Espaço de Kulunguana, Maputo. (http://2009/03/

depoisdemuitipi.html)

#

This exhibition was organized with Filipe Branquinho (http://

filipebranquinho2013/04.html, http://www.magnin-a.com/artiste.php?

id_artiste=45), with the complicity of Janice Lemos and Uno Pereira, in Maputo

and Cape Town, as well as Isabel Carlos and Leonor Nazaré (at the Modern Art

Centre of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (http://rogeriona-colecao-do-

cam.html), who made it possible for Rogério Pereira to be represented. Malenga

and Mauro Pinto (http://www.magnin-a.com ) also assisted in the assembling. “De

Maputo” is dedicated to Elisa Santos, who has been revealing the new

“Ocupantes” to us ("Ocupações Temporárias", ocupacoestemporarias.blogspot.pt/

2010/03.html.com Maputo 2010/2013, Lisboa 2013, and to Elísio Macamo, the

sociologist who teaches us how to think, from Mozambique via Basel.

Alexandre Pomar - http://alexandrepomar.typepad.com/

(translation by Francisca Cortesão)

a Pequena GaleriaAvenida 24 de Julho 4C | 1200-480 Lisboa, Portugal T. + 351 218 264 081 | email. info@apequenagaleria.pt

! Until 14 July 2013 4ª - 6 ª: 18-20h / sat: 16-20h / sun. 18-20h

PHOTOS1. José Cabral: Kok Nam dnd Lisdália, Maputo, 1988.2. José Cabral: Inhambane, 19953. Luís Basto: Passionate body / Corpo apaixonado, Bairro da Liberdade, Maputo, 20084. Rogério Pereira: S/ Título, s/ data. (Col. Centro de Arte Moderna, FCG). 5. Moira Forjaz: Moamba (?), Sul de Moçambique,1962?© os autores / Janice Lemos, Maputo - Cortesia CAM-FCG

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