Mario Macilau: The Road Not Taken

The brilliant Mozambican photographer, Mario Macilau arrives in London next week for his first U.K. solo show, The Road Not Taken. This follows  his participation in The Saatchi Gallery’s first Pangaea: New Art from Africa and Latin America exhibition  last year. His new show contains a collection of powerful images from two major series The Price of Cement and Out of Town.

Most of Macilau’s work is concerned with representing the plight of marginalised people but what makes his images so powerful and so haunting is the absence of voyeurism and intrusion that is the back story of many photographs that are in the public domain. Here there is a palpable sense of trust between photographer and subject. Macilau’s explicit aim is to allow his models to tell their stories. The results may be harrowing but they invariably invoke a sense of shared humanity.

Mário Macilau | Untitled (5) | The Cement Series | C-Print | 80 x 120cm | Edition of 6 plus AP £2,000 courtesy of Ed Cross Fine Art Ltd and the Auction Room. .

His Price of Cement images portray workers in illegal cement bagging operations – working at night in lethal environmental conditions.


His Out of Town works focus on neglected communities – the image below is of a Maasai man taken in Kenya in 2014.

Mário Macilau | Untitled (1), Out of Town Series | 2014 | | C-Print | 80 x 120cm | Edition of 6 plus AP £2,000 courtesy of Ed Cross Fine Art Ltd and The Auction Room

Mario Macilau: The Road not Taken, 23rd March – 10th April, is at Mallet, 37 Dover Street,  W1S 4NJ

Ed Cross interview: African art and developments in the online market

Mamady Seydi | Les Cyclistes | 2012 | mixed media sculpture

Ed Cross was recently interviewed by Richard Mudariki for Omeka Magazine. He and Richard discussed Ed’s introduction to African art and his time spent in Africa as a sculptor. Ed shares his thoughts on the current state of the market and how selling African art online is growing in popularity and profitability.

Read the full article:
http://issuu.com/richardmudariki/docs/85/1?e=8722852%2F5808048

The tipping point for contemporary African art?

Mário Macilau | Photo of Girl with Doll

Ed Cross was recently interviewed by Rachel Hamada for This is Africa about the contemporary African art market and art scene. Ed believes that the market has reached a tipping point, and that it is now getting the attention it deserves.

What does this increasing interest in contemporary African art mean for the artists involved? Is the term ‘African’ being painted with too broad a brush? Ed offers his opinions into these issues in this insightful article.

Read the article: http://www.thisisafrica.me/visual-arts/detail/20070/the-quiet-explosion-of-contemporary-african-art-in-the-global-art-market

Peterson Kamwathi

Peterson Kamwathi Untitled Digital Print 650mm x 480mm

This remarkable print by the Kenyan artist, Peterson Kamwathi whom I work with in London, was born of a collaboration with the Kenyan poet Shailja Patel for the South African based project Dialogue Among Civilizations The Art of Human Rights you can read Shailja's poem What we want on this link.

I think Kamwathi's print makes its point with economy and subtlety, demonstrating the strength, beauty and vulnerability of human communities.



There is a very illuminating London article/interview with Kamwathi by Karen Dabrowska which gives a real sense of both the man and his work.

Peterson Kamwathi explaining Kenya through woodcut prints and icons

and we produced a full catalogue of the artist's last show in London with an essay by the SOAS art historian, Elsbeth Court, and an interview with fellow artist Sam Hopkins together with images and details of all the works in the show. Do check it out...

...Matter of Record... Catalogue