Phyllis Galembo: "Maske" revisited

I am truly fond of Phyllis Galembo's work. Galembo is a photographer and professor of Art at the University at Albany, State University of  New York. She has exhibited extensively in museums, most recently Call and Response in collaboration with Nick Cave at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with Spoleto Festival USA. Her  work can also be seen in five published books, Aso-ebi: Cloth of the Family, Divine Inspiration from Benin to Bahia, Vodou: Visions and Voices of Haiti, Dressed for Thrills: 100 years of Halloween Costumes and Masquerade and Maske. 
For over two decades, Phyllis Galembo has documented cultural and religious traditions in Africa and the African Diaspora. Traveling widely throughout western and central Africa, and regularly to Haiti, her subjects are participants in masquerade events - traditional African ceremonies and contemporary fancy dress and carnival - who use costume, body paint and masks  to create mythic characters. Sometimes entertaining and humorous, often dark and frightening, her portraits document and describe the transformation power of the mask.

The exhibition Phyllis Galembo: Maske features recent photographs by the artist , including sixteen large-scale color prints of African and Haitian figures in indigenous masquerade costume. The exhibit also coincides with the release of Galembo's new book, Maske (Boot, 2010).


Exhibition at Steven Kasher Gallery, NY, March 2 - April 2, 2011
Opening reception and book signing, March 2, 6-8 pm

Four Children in Fancy Dress, Nobles Masquerade,

Winneba, Ghana, 2009

Two in Fancy Dress with Pointed Hats, Tumus

Masquerade Group, Winneba Ghana, 2010

Panther, Dodo Masquerade, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, 2009

Kambulo and Kapada, Makishi Masquerade, Kaoma, Zambia, 2007

Fancy Dress and Rasta, Nobles Masquerade Group, Winneba, Ghana, 2009

Water Buffalo Devil, Red Indians, Freetown, Sierra Leone, 2008

Ghost and Bull, Dodo Masquerade, Bobo-Dioulasso,

Burkina Faso, 2009

Janus Mask, Nkim Village, Nigeria, 2005

Atal Masquerade, Emanghabe Village, Nigeria, 2004

Agbago (Big Horse Who Comes in the Night) Masquerade,

Mountain Cut, Sierra Leon, 2009

Atam Masquerader, Alok Village, Cross River, Nigeria, 2004

All images courtesy of Phyllis Galembo/Steven Kasher Gallery
Phyllis Galembo

This post is also featured on The Huffington Post

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Maske by Phyllis Galembo

New York-based artist PHYLLIS GALEMBO has been documenting masquerade and carnival-based practices around the world, and she is most celebrated for images taken in West African countries and also Haiti, where she has traveled annually for the past decade to work in Jacmel. By returning to certain places over a period of several years, Galembo has developed an understanding with some of the more secretive societies in Sierra Leone, Mali, and Burkina Faso, and this has enabled her to document carnival costume and masking practices from a broad spectrum of groups covering an immense geographical area. After years of photographing indigenous cultures, Phyllis Galembo has compiled her new book MASKE, which shows traditional masquerades from Africa. 
Galembo's photographs of African masks in their figural resplendence make one wonder with great regret what visual and artistic knowledge of masking in Africa is now forever lost. Masking is one of the most complex and secretive, yet profoundly important, phenomena in Africa.
Here are some excerpts from MASKE.

Makishi Masquerades

Zambia

Animal and Spirit Masquerades

Burkina Faso

Masquerades of Cross River

Nigeria

Gelede and Egungun Masquerades
Benin

Maske will be released on October 16, 2010

Courtesy Phyllis Galembo and publisher Chris Boot

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Masquerade, a Decade by Phyllis Galembo

For more than a decade, Phyllis Galembo has been traveling to Africa and the Caribbean to photograph ritual performances and celebrations. Some of Galembo's most striking work comes for Haiti, and in the last 14 years, she has visited the island almost annually.
" Haiti is just an amazing place, I don't know whether it's the survival mechanisms they have in music and art, but there is a very special energy there that is hard to describe, "she says.
Phyllis Galembo has captured images of voodoo ceremonies under Haitian waterfalls, masquerades in Zambia and kings and queens in Nigeria.
" I think in all societies, people like the opportunity to express themselves through virtual, or through dress,"she says.

Haiti

West African Masquerade

Images courtesy of Phyllis Galembo

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