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Edson Chagas

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(Redirected from Oikonomos (Chagas)) Angolan photographer (born 1977)

Edson Chagas
Born1977 (age 47–48)
Luanda, Angola
OccupationPhotographer

Edson Chagas (born 1977) is an Angolan photographer. Trained as a photojournalist, his works explore cities and consumerism. His Found Not Taken series resituates abandoned objects elsewhere within cities. His other large-format photograph series play on tropes related to African masks. Oikonomos consists of self-portraits of Chagas with shopping bags over his head as symbols of consumerism in Luanda, his home city. The passport-style photographs of Tipo Passe show models wearing nondescript, contemporary clothes and traditional African masks.

Chagas represented Angola at the 2013 Venice Biennale, for which he won its Golden Lion for best national pavilion. His works have also exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and Brooklyn Museum.

Life and career

Edson Chagas was born in Luanda, Angola, in 1977. He has a degree in photojournalism from the London College of Communication and studied documentary photography at the University of Wales, Newport.

Chagas represented Angola at the country's first Venice Biennale national pavilion in 2013, curated by Paula Nascimento and Stephano Rabolli Pansera. His exhibition placed on the floor giveaway, poster-sized photographs of discarded objects positioned in relation to weathered architecture in the Angolan capital, Luanda. These poster stacks were in "stark juxtaposition" with the opulent, Catholic decorations of the host, Palazzo Cini, which had been closed for the previous two decades. The New York Times called the pavilion a "breakout star" of the Biennale, and it won the biennial's top prize, the Golden Lion for best national pavilion. The jury praised his showing of the "irreconcilability and complexity of site". Frieze wrote that the pavilion showed a "relational attitude to space, ... responsive to context and not overly concerned with diplomacy and reifying otherness", as other African nation pavilions had been.

The photographs on display came from Chagas's larger series, Found Not Taken, which included conceptually similar photographs from cities—in addition to Luanda—where the photographer had spent time: London and Newport, Wales. The curators had asked Chagas to only display the photographs from Luanda for the Biennale, which he found acceptable since it didn't take the series out of context. He found that the cities, which were each preparing to host major events, demonstrated a "sense of renewal" in its culture. Coming from Luanda, where everything was reused, Chagas noted how consumer habits have evolved over time. He photographed each object in spaces where it interacted with its environment. Some objects were shot in nearly the same space as they were found, while others had to be moved. Through this method, Chagas felt that he learned the city's rhythm. He has said that he plans to continue the series. Artsy's Giles Peppiatt named the series as a highlight and recommended purchase at the 2014 1:54 contemporary African art fair. The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa acquired Chagas's work from the pavilion.

His 2011 Oikonomos series of large-format self-portraits with shopping bags over his head were intended to hide his identity behind symbols of globalized capitalism and secondhand consumerism in Luanda as secondhand goods permeate African consumer culture. Some of the bags include imagery such as a "World of Hope" slogan and a map of the Caribbean islands. This series was later shown at the Brooklyn Museum's 2016 Disguise: Masks and Global African Art exhibition. Hyperallergic highlighted the performativity in the artist wearing a Barack Obama bag over his head as kitschy, funny, and like another persona.

Later in 2014, at Paris Photo, Chagas showed a large-scale portrait photograph series, Tipo Passe, depicting models dressed in nondescript, contemporary attire and, in contrast, traditional African masks. The clothes came from street markets and import retailers, while the masks came from a private collection. Each work is titled with a fictional name invented by Chagas. Its content plays on the contemporary stereotyped association of the African mask as part of the region's identity. Hyperallergic described one such image, with its carved wood mask and plaid madras shirt a "delightfully incongruous combination". The prints were made in editions of seven. He showed selections at exhibitions at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2018) and the Tate Modern (2023).

Selections from these series also showed at the Museum of Modern Art's Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015 contemporary photography exhibition and the 2016 1:54 art fair.

In 2017 and 2018, Chagas captured photographs of the abandoned Fábrica Irmãos Carneiro textile factory in Luanda, which he showed in Lisbon in 2022. The interior photos show textured close-ups of its abandoned machines, cobwebs, dust, and rust. Others show the degradation of furniture, wall paint, and the building's facade.

As of 2015, Chagas continues to live in Luanda and works as the image editor for Expansão, an Angolan newspaper.

Selected exhibitions

Solo

Group

References

  1. Angerame, Nicola Davide (June 3, 2013). "Angola Leone D'Oro. Buona la prima". Artribune. Archived from the original on March 26, 2018. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  2. ^ Sebambo, Khumo (September 16, 2015). "Edson Chagas' photographs are simple and striking". Design Indaba. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  3. ^ McGarry, Kevin (June 7, 2013). "The Venice Biennale's Rookies of the Year". New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on November 9, 2017. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
  4. Cembalest, Robin (June 6, 2013). "A Gallery of Venice Biennale Artists". ARTnews. Archived from the original on March 28, 2016. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  5. O'Toole, Sean (September 14, 2013). "Africa in Venice: The 55th Venice Biennale". Frieze. Archived from the original on June 14, 2016. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  6. ^ Sousa, Suzana (May 28, 2013). "C& in conversation with Edson Chagas: 'Most of my work is series. It's a method that reflects how I feel things.'". Contemporary And. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  7. Peppiatt, Giles (October 9, 2014). "My Highlights from 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair 2014". Artsy. Archived from the original on March 12, 2018. Retrieved July 23, 2015.
  8. Ruiz, Cristina (June 30, 2015). "Italy's contemporary galleries are pioneering African art". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
  9. Gbadamosi, Nosmot (May 10, 2016). "New York showcases stunning African art". CNN. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  10. ^ Kedmey, Karen (May 3, 2016). "The Brooklyn Museum Is Transforming the Way We Think about African Art". Artsy. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved January 29, 2017.
  11. ^ Stern, Melissa (May 6, 2016). "Focusing on Photo Portraits at New York's Contemporary African Art Fair". Hyperallergic. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  12. ^ Rodney, Seph (September 12, 2016). "What a Show About Masks Might Really Be Disguising". Hyperallergic. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  13. ^ Reyburn, Scott (November 14, 2014). "In Paris, Photography and Old Masters Meet". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on September 15, 2016.
  14. ^ Everett-Green, Robert (June 11, 2018). "Montreal exhibit pairs Picasso with the kinds of African art he appropriated". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on July 5, 2018. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
  15. Cumming, Laura (July 9, 2023). "A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography review – exhilarating, dynamic, profound". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712.
  16. ^ Freeman, Laura (July 4, 2023). "A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography review — find the playfulness (if you can)". The Times. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
  17. ^ Branquinho, Laurinda (October 18, 2022). "Factory of Disposable Feelings: Edson Chagas no Hangar". Umbigo. Retrieved January 11, 2025.
  18. Kedmey, Karen (November 9, 2015). "MoMA and Guggenheim Take Stock of Photography in 2015". Artsy. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  19. Matei, Adrienne (May 10, 2018). "Picasso and Beyond at the Musée des Beaux Arts". NUVO. Retrieved January 11, 2025.

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