The Photographers Gallery

The Photographers Gallery Print Sales Introduces Guy Tillim

Print Sales at The Photographers’ Gallery is pleased to introduce and offer for sale, Guy Tillim’s most recent body of work, Avenue Patrice Lumumba

Traveling through several countries in Africa including Angola, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Avenue Patrice Lumumba reflects on the civic architecture conceived in the last years of colonialism and the immediate post-colonial period in Africa. In the French and Portuguese colonies in particular, modernist architecture was used expressly to convey the ideology of the era. The colonial vision was flawed, and the structures were a strange and fragile hybrid of aspirations and ideas that were not necessarily applicable to Africa. However, through subsequent shifts in power this architecture has been absorbed into the African landscape, and today these buildings and civic spaces are an integral component of contemporary African culture.

Tillim in his photography, resists focusing on the formalism of the architecture and instead considers its changing use over the past half-century. He also resists viewing the buildings reductively as symbols of domination or as representative of the general decay of African institutions, but rather seeks to acknowledge the complexity of their histories.

Guy Tillim is a widely respected and established photographers based in South Africa. He has received numerous awards and grants recognising his accomplishments.