Travel Pick: Art and Archaeology in Germany
Africa in Photographs on view in Berlin

This group show hopes to provide an insight into the  landscape and wildlife as well as the culture of individual countries on the African continent. Some of this work is familiar, such as Leni Riefenstahl's excellent work for the beautiful tribe of the Nuba. That said, problematic contemporary social circumstances are not ignored, like the photo reportages by Thomas Billhardt, Robert Lebeck and Oliver Jannsen show. They focus on the social upheavals after the colonial rule, in particular that of Congo, or the impact of the HIV pandemic.

The American artist Kurt Markus concentrates on the widths of the Sahara desert with a series of dune landscapes. Nick Brands' portraits of African animals are quite good, notably the Elephant seires. Moroccan born Magnum-photographer Bruno Barbey produced a color series on Morocco and elements of Islamic architecture.

Riefenstahl's  photographs of the Sudanese native people in the 1960's are supplemented with portrait studies of Ethiopian tribes, the "Surma" and "Kara" photographed by Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher. Another highlight in this context is the work by Irving Penn that had been commissioned by Vogue in 1967 showing the "Dahomey Girls".

© Leni Riefenstahl
Nuba-Dorf, Sudan, 1962-1969
Photo courtesy of Camera Work Gallery