PIETER HUGO (B. 1976), Mummy Ahmadu and Mallam Mantari Lamal with Mainasara, Abuja, Nigeria, 2005

PIETER HUGO (B. 1976)
Mummy Ahmadu and Mallam Mantari Lamal with Mainasara, Abuja, Nigeria, 2005
digital C-print
signed, titled, dated and numbered '8/9' in ink (verso)
image: 39 x 39 in. (99 x 99 cm.)
sheet: 44 x 44 in. (111.7 x 111.7 cm.)
This work is number eight from the sold-out edition of nine, plus two artist's proofs.

Pre-Lot Text
Mummy Ahmadu and Mallam Mantari Lamal with Mainasara, Abuja, Nigeria, 2005 is emblematic of Pieter Hugo’s bold photographic style. Focusing his practice on photographing local African communities of his hometown of Cape Town, South Africa, he has worked in many countries across Africa, documenting the lives of the people through his portraits, often focusing on segregated groups of people living on the outskirts of society. His series The Hyena and Other Men (2005-2007) draws attention to surreal or unbelievable every-day routines of the honey gatherers or gang members who display their chained-up baboons or hyenas threateningly on the streets. In this work from the series, Hugo presents a small child in school uniform fearlessly sat on a hyena whose sharp teeth are exposed by a man crouching beside it. The man is dressed in a make-shift outfit of rags around his waist and the background of strewn wooden remnants is just as rudimentary. The expression of both figures is one of normality, fatigue and habit-induced boredom. It is this which immediately draws attention to the divide between subject and viewer.
Pieter Hugo’s work is represented in prominent public and private collections, among them are The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.