Camilla Grimaldi Gallery 25 Old Burlington Street (4th Floor W1S3AN London Royaume-Uni
Camilla Grimaldi Gallery is proud to announce Martina Bacigalupo's first exhibition in the United Kingdom: Gulu Real Art Studio. The show will present an edited selection of 6 x 4 inch prints that the artist found discarded at the Gulu Real Art Studio in the city of Gulu, northern Uganda.
Bacigalupo's collection represents a typological cross-section of Gulu's society today⎯nurses, soldiers, farmers, teachers, businessmen, nuns, students, mothers, and children⎯defined through poses, clothing, and objects. Vivid and diverse, the images extend the tradition of African vernacular studio portraiture but at the same time the cut-outs create completely unconventional portraits. What remains heightens the viewer's attention to gesture and detail, and it is through these subtle details that other markers of identity slowly reveal themselves.
The photographic work is accompanied by a collection of audio interviews of the studio's customers conducted by Bacigalupo. A selection of transcripts of the interviews will be available for press purposes upon request.
The monograph Gulu Real Art Studio was released by Steidl Publishers in 2013, and it will be available for purchase at the gallery.
Martina Bacigalupo was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1978. Currently based in Burundi, East Africa, her work has been published in the The New York Times Magazine, London Sunday Times Magazine, Le Monde Magazine, Internazionale, Elle, Esquire, and Jeune Afrique. Bacigalupo is a member of Agence Vu in Paris. She has been awarded several prizes such as Canon Female Photojournalist Award for her report on the consequences of the war between the Ugandan army and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) over 25 years.