Montague Contemporary is excited to present the first solo exhibition for acclaimed Cameroonian photographer Angèle Etoundi Essamba. Curated by Laura Day Webb, the exhibition features works from Essamba’s latest series shown at the inaugural Cameroon Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale.
Essamba (b. 1962, Cameroon) is committed to a reflection on the identity of the African woman, imbuing her subjects with meaning and majesty, while simultaneously exploring the relationship between tradition and modernity.
A-FIL-IATIONS invites the viewer to examine the world through her lens in an exploration of society, identity, gender, and artistry, drawing inspiration from Greek mythology and a weaving contest between goddess and mortal. Each strives to best the other with the web’s wrought echoing in the connected nature of contemporary virtual society. Knotted, anchored, intertwined, thread becomes a metaphor for human connectivity’s transcendence of the physical, with women as it’s weavers, forever spinning, repairing, reconstructing, and protecting the threads of this world. Vibrant colors intermingled with black and white, merging shapes tied, untied, and unified carry stories and emotions from peace to perseverance.
This program is supported as part of the Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York.
ABOUT Angèle Etoundi Essamba
Born in Cameroon and educated in France, Angèle Etoundi Essamba is a graduate of the Dutch Photography School in Amsterdam where she lives. Since her first exhibition in 1985, her work has been frequently exhibited in museums, institutions, Biennales, art fairs, and galleries in Europe, Africa, the United States, Latin America, and Asia. Her photographs are held in several private and public collections, including the MoMa, World Bank Art Programme, the Memphis Brooks Museum, the Hood Museum Dartmouth College, the Tampa Museum, the Boca Raton Museum of Art, and the Herbert Johnson Museum of Art Cornell University.
In 2016 she was awarded the 'National Knight of the Order of Valor' by the President of the Republic of Cameroon.
For further information, please contact us at info@montaguecontemporary.com
