On the streets of any city, traffic can create trouble. In Lagos, it organizes daily life for schoolchildren, office workers and the dozens of informal workers who sell drinks and snacks to commuters criss-crossing the big city. Danfoss, or public bus. “The energies of life in Lagos—creative, vicious, ambiguous—converge at the bus station,” novelist and photographer Teju Kerr writes in his mixed Lagos travelogue, “Every Day Is a Thief’s Day.” wrote in.
However, through the eyes of photographer Logo Oluwamuyiwa, a team of Danfoss Morphing into a phalanx of intersecting geometric planes, it transforms the everyday transportation experience into a striking modernist composition. Inspired by American mid-century street photographers Garry Winogrand and Robert Frank, Oluwamuyiwa has been documenting his work since 2013 in the ongoing series Monochrome Lagos Of what happened to the hometown and its inhabitants, the series is a brilliant archive in stark black and black. – White images that slow down the pace of urban life.
Oil Miracle II, from Monochrome Lagos, 2018.Photography: Logo Oluwamuyiwa
Selected works from Monochrome Lagos are at the Museum of Modern Art as part of the group exhibition New Photography 2023, the latest edition of the museum’s exhibition program that began in 1985.Whereas past editions of “New Photography” have been overwhelmed by the scope of the series’ twenty-eighth installment, which at times highlights nearly two dozen contributors in one exhibition, the twenty-eighth installment of the series brings together just seven , all in Museum of Modern Art first. These artists live and work on several continents, united by their connection to Lagos and the quality of life within Lagos. However, the city is only part of the subjects of these photographers. More importantly, it serves as a starting point for revealing complex histories, connecting viewers with a deep past while maintaining a unique sense of the present.
Ancestral home of the Avori people and former territory of the Kingdom of Benin, Lagos takes its current name from the Portuguese, who arrived as traders in the 15th century and were fascinated by the lagoons that dot the coast awe. In the nineteenth century, Lagos became an important port of entry for British colonists who sought to abolish the slave trade on the West African coast and forged political alliances with local leaders that eventually led to British colonial rule in 1862. , parts of Nigeria that later became the modern nation-state were incorporated into protectorates. Formerly enslaved people were now free, and there was a massive migration back to the region from Brazil and the West Indies.
