Samuel Fosso
The Lifeguard

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Artist Samuel Fosso(Cameroonian, born 1962)Cameroonian, born 1962

CultureCameroonian

Titles

The Lifeguard
from the series Tati

Date1997, printed 2003

PlaceCameroon, Africa

MediumChromogenic print

DimensionsImage: 42 3/4 × 34 in. (108.6 × 86.4 cm)
Sheet: 50 3/8 × 39 7/8 in. (128 × 101.3 cm)
Frame: 55 1/16 × 45 1/16 × 1 1/2 in. (139.8 × 114.4 × 3.8 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Nina and Michael Zilkha

Object number2004.810

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionSamuel Fosso’s Tati series continues the artist’s career-long approach of casting himself in different personas. While this series was created with the assistance of studio technicians and made in color, these differences did not change Fosso’s motivation. “Taking pictures is for me a way of liberating myself from the sufferings of childhood, from illness, war, everything,” he noted. “I always believed that my life would be pushed aside by other people. But photography has given me a second life. It’s made all lives possible for me.”
Provenance[Jack Shainman Gallery, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 2004.
Exhibition History"Through an African Lens: Sub-Saharan Photography from the Museum's Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 27–November 8, 2020.

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