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Lot Essay
Aïda Muluneh’s bold photographs, often characterised by gloriously confident use of primary colours, meditate upon the identity of the African woman. Her practice addresses the European gaze and the lens of colonialism. Her figures often feature in alien landscapes, evocative of science fiction. However, these otherworldly scenes are also uncannily familiar by virtue of the clichéd Eurocentric photographic conventions which Muluneh masterfully parodies and reappropriates.
In The 99 Series (Part One), we see a tightly cropped portrait. Set against a cold, grey background, the subject’s body and tufts of hair are painted a crisp white, while a line of black dots runs from the top of the woman’s forehead to the middle of her chest at the bottom of the picture plane. It is on the subject’s hands, laid over her neck and face, that Muluneh’s signature vibrant colour can be found. They, along with the subject’s ears, have been painted a deep, rich crimson.
Muluneh is regarded as one of Africa’s leading photography experts, and aims to raise awareness of the effect photography can have on shaping cultural perceptions, and in confronting the foreign gaze and its often negative associations.
Born in Ethiopia in 1974, Muluneh grew up between Yemen, England and Cyprus, later living in Canada and the United States. Today, she is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Having started her career as a photojournalist for the Washington Post, her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., both of whom now hold her work in their permanent collections. In 2007 she received the European Union Prize in the Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie, in Bamako, Mali, and was the 2010 winner of the CRAF International Award of Photography in Spilimbergo, Italy. Muluneh is also a founder and director of the Addis Foto Fest.
In The 99 Series (Part One), we see a tightly cropped portrait. Set against a cold, grey background, the subject’s body and tufts of hair are painted a crisp white, while a line of black dots runs from the top of the woman’s forehead to the middle of her chest at the bottom of the picture plane. It is on the subject’s hands, laid over her neck and face, that Muluneh’s signature vibrant colour can be found. They, along with the subject’s ears, have been painted a deep, rich crimson.
Muluneh is regarded as one of Africa’s leading photography experts, and aims to raise awareness of the effect photography can have on shaping cultural perceptions, and in confronting the foreign gaze and its often negative associations.
Born in Ethiopia in 1974, Muluneh grew up between Yemen, England and Cyprus, later living in Canada and the United States. Today, she is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Having started her career as a photojournalist for the Washington Post, her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., both of whom now hold her work in their permanent collections. In 2007 she received the European Union Prize in the Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie, in Bamako, Mali, and was the 2010 winner of the CRAF International Award of Photography in Spilimbergo, Italy. Muluneh is also a founder and director of the Addis Foto Fest.