Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou

Jack Bell Gallery, 2012
Acquired from the above by present owner

London, Jack Bell Gallery, Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou: Demoiselles De Porto-Novo, 2012
London, Saatchi Gallery, Pangaea: New Art from Africa and Latin America, 2014, illustrated in the catalogue p. 35

This work appears to be in very good condition. Please note that the photograph has not been examined out of its frame.
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Untitled is part of the ‘Demoiselles de Porto-Novo’ series, which spotlights young women of Porto-Novo. The faces of the women are covered in masks, and their breasts exposed. The photographs are taken in a mansion owned by Agbodjelou’s family that was built in 1890, by Africans who returned after the abolition of slavery in Brazil.

In combining the setting of modern architecture, with bare breasted women wearing ethnographic masks, Agbodjelou addresses the evolving nature of African identity. ‘Demoiselles de Porto-Novo’ series is a continuation from ‘Citizens of Porto Novo’, which explored the masculinity of Porto-Novo’s bodybuilders juxtaposed with the femininity of flowers.