Pieter Hugo

So, as a graphic designer, I find myself over at ffffound pretty much every day. That's where I first spotted these images.





I found them hard to look at. As an animal lover. As an African. I knew, especially being the writer of this blog, I should look into it. But it was too hard. I have issues about animals being stuck in situations they can do nothing about. I pretended it wasn't there.

Then a friend sent me this link, with these images.







These intrigued me so I looked them up. Turns out they are photographs taken by the same man. Pieter Hugo. I find his work fascinating, he seems to seek out strangeness, and then documents it. His website will tell you lot about his images, the stories behind them and his motives. There is a lot.

For instance, the hyena men (the series is called "The Hyena and Other Men") are a group of men in Nigeria, who are performers. Hugo is fascinated by the juxtaposition of the urbanity of the environment in which these men live and the wildness of the animals with whom they perform. The second set of photographs ("Permanent Error") documents an area in Ghana, where obsolete technology is dumped.

Yes, this is where your old junk gets sent.

Hugo doesn't say all that much in his write-up about his motives but I think this one is pretty clear.

I know I don't post about art very often. I do like pretty pictures. But we can't look at pretty pictures all the time and these definitely called out to me. I think they were worth bringing to your attention. I hope you think so, too.