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MIKE DISFARMER, UNTITLED, COLLECTION OF THE A R K A N S A S ARTS CENTER S E Y D O U KEI'TA, UNTITLED SEYDOU KEITA: PORTRAITS FROM MALI Working in the 1950s in Bamako, Mali, south of the African Sahara Desert, Seydou Kei'ta made tens of thousands of portraits of his community between 1948 and 1962. Together they form an outstanding record of Malian society during this period. From 1946 onward, Bamako was the centre of French colonial power in West Africa, gradually emerging as a model of modernity. It was just that image of a modern society that Keita's photographs present. The layering of patterns, printed on backdrops and in the fabrics of women's dresses, contribute to the richness of Keita's compositions. Indeed, there is a suggestion of the Barogue in these casual displays of the many props of urbanity. Meanwhile, Keita's overwhelming preference for black-and-white photography unifies what might otherwise read as confusion. Portraits from Opposites Sides of the Globe visual arts | by D e n i s Gautier In the middle of the twentieth century, there was a lack of pretense to "artmaking" in the work of the commercial portrait photographer. As Seydou Keita observed, "When you are a photographer, you always have to come up with ideas to please the customer.. .You try to obtain the best pose, the most advantageous profile." In retrospect, the workaday realities of the professional portrait photographer -- a focus on documentation and care in composition -- combined with traces of social context can result in a compelling beauty, drawing on both nostalgia and a fascinating though sometimes disturbing exoticism. Seydou Keita and Mike Disfarmer, two working photographers on opposite sides of the globe, maintained commercial studios rooted in their own communities; Keita working in Bamako, Mali, through the 1950s, and Disfarmer in Heber Springs, Arkansas, through the 1940s. Each self-employed as portrait photographers, over the decades they created a document of place, an anthropology that emerges through a study of collected identities. Although their work was almost entirely commissioned, both photographers maintained an archive of their images. Disfarmer's work was discovered in the 1970s and Keita's in the early 1990s. On balance, the work of these two artists provides a meaningful glimpse into another time and place. At the same time, it challenges conventional understanding of relative worldliness of different places in the middle of the century. W o r k i n t h i s e x h i b i t i o n is o n l o a n f r o m t h e f r o m W e d g e G a l l e r y a n d S t e p h e n B u l g e r G a l l e r y in T o r o n t o , S e y d o u K e i t a C A A C -- T h e P i g o z z i Collection (Geneva), Andre M a g n i n , Philippe Boutte, a n d several collections. private DISFARMER: PORTRAITS FROM ARKANSAS Mike Disfarmer, born Michael Meyer in 1884, documented Depressionera and wartime American rural life in Heber Springs, Arkansas, a small and isolated town in the Ozark Mountains of northern Arkansas. It was a time and place that allowed for little more than church and hard work. Then came the Second World War. The combined forces are indelibly inscribed on the faces of its inhabitants. In a place where kinship form the centre of social existence, the forced separation precipitated by the war became a powerful motivation for the documentation of these lives. Apparent in the recollections of the locals and in the more than 3,000 images archived at the Arkansas Arts Center from the period 1939-1946 is the recurrence of the same sitters, their images captured week after week. Just as significant as the sitters is their treatment by the photographer. Disfarmer directly presents his sitters in front of a simple backdrop in a diffuse light. There is no suggestion that Disfarmer has any awareness of the sitters as exotic or strikingly ordinary. Work in this exhibition is on loan from the Arkansas Arts Center. Disfarmer: Portraits from Arkansas and Seydou Keita: Portraits from M a l i will be on v i e w at Presentation House Gallery t o M a y 2 7 . May | June 7