Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s pictures is immediately recognisable in its content material and its composition. His apply, which he considers extra artwork than pictures, has gone again twenty years and has checked out queer our bodies, sexuality, race and colonial historical past by the captured picture. Spanning portraiture, self-portraiture and collage, his studio-based work makes use of mirrors, discovered objects and the digital camera itself to discover our perceptions of our bodies in relation to pictures.
Now, a survey of his latest work, ‘Exposures’, is on view at Nottingham Modern, within the artists’ first UK institutional present (till 5 Could 2024).
Sepuya by no means casts his photos, and everybody who options in his work is a buddy or a buddy of a buddy. Captured organically, he would possibly shoot photos at a celebration or whereas a buddy is staying with him in Los Angeles. In 2023, he photographed artistic motion director Stephen Galloway for the Wallpaper* USA 300 (a information to artistic America through which they each featured).
Paul Mpagi Sepuya, ‘Exposures’, Nottingham Modern
Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Daylight Studio Mannequin Research (0X5A2323), 2022, archival pigment print
(Picture credit score: Courtesy the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Paris)
‘There are pals and there are some pals that I’ve photographed for 15 or 20 years at this level,’ Sepuya explains over video chat. ‘There are some pals too, I’ve identified for a very long time, however have solely not too long ago began to {photograph}. Possibly there’s some those who I’m simply attending to know, however I do not {photograph} strangers or fashions.’
The viewer is concurrently performed with and drawn in, whether or not we’re a full nude silhouette of the male physique, on the diagonal, or two nude male figures, one sitting on the opposite’s lap, with the contrasting color of their pores and skin, the face of the photographer obscured by the digital camera.
Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Daylight Studio (DSCF0043), 2021, archival pigment print
(Picture credit score: Courtesy the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Paris)
Reflecting on the natural nature of what he does, Sepuya explains that the work he produces can range relying even on the time of 12 months: ‘[There’s] an ongoing cycle of issues I am enthusiastic about within the studio. Possibly it is simply concerning the seasons. Proper now it is freezing-cold within the studio, and it is the time of 12 months when one form of image is getting made. I used to be making a portrait with a buddy who can be a photographer yesterday, and a few still-lifes and it’s extremely totally different from, as an example, within the spring or summer time, when it is simply extremely sizzling within the area after which it’s a rather more comfy time to make nudes or one thing like that.’
Over the previous couple of years, the objects introduced into his photos have developed to incorporate not solely the gadgets of the studio – reminiscent of velvet backdrops, tripods, mirrors and cameras – but additionally crops and antiques, referencing the colonial legacy of portraiture. With the presence of individuals, he introduces questions on queerness, race and historical past, creating advanced, compelling photos.
Of the objects, he says, ‘There are some issues which are from the Nineteenth century, there’s an object from the 18th century, there are issues I’ve discovered that date from the Nineteen Eighties. [My approach is a] postmodern tackle [the appearance of] Thirteenth-century objects in Nineteenth-century pictures. So, they’re up to date objects actually,’ he explains. ‘I used to be simply curious about seeing what it was prefer to be in an area with this stuff, as a result of [after] taking preliminary photograph historical past lessons and enthusiastic about that stuff after I was an undergrad, I by no means felt any form of curiosity or connection to Nineteenth-century pictures.’
Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Darkish Room Studio Mirror (0X5A3797), 2022, archival pigment print.
(Picture credit score: Courtesy the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Paris)
‘Exposures’ appears to be like at Sepuya’s work from 2017 to 2022, and whereas there are modifications within the composition, the staging of the themes stays on the coronary heart of the works in a play on the thought of the capturer and the captured, the watcher and the watched.
‘Portraiture is the fixed,’ Sepuya says of the physique of labor, which has a liberating, relaxed sexuality that has led to comparisons to Robert Mapplethorpe. A curve of the arm right here, the road of a again there, the magnificence of the bare physique, and a lot extra for the viewer to unpack or just to take pleasure in.
‘Exposures’ is on at Nottingham Modern from 27 January – 5 Could 2024
nottinghamcontemporary.org
Supply: Wallpaper
