Book Review- Paul Mpagi Sepuya
The reviewers personal copy of Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Paul Mpagi Sepuya - published by Aperture and CAM St. Louis
By: Timothy LeBlanc
Of the twenty-five books, excluding zines, I have added to my library so far in 2020, Paul Mpagi Sepuya published by Aperture, is the best. It was published on the occasion of an early career survey at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM St. Louis) which then traveled to the Blaffer Museum at the University of Houston, this volume explores Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s body of work ranging from 2005 to 2018. While that is a large range of work to go through in a book which is only 96 pages, Aperture and CAM St. Louis have done so masterfully by pairing essays from a variety of sources interlaced into the standard format of photo plates.
The book opens with a nine-page interview between Wassan Al-Khundairi, the chief curator at CAM St. Louis, and the artist himself. Al-Khundairi, with Assistant Curator Misa Jeffereis, worked closely with Sepuya for two years to develop the show as presented, making her one of the best-informed people on the artist at this point in Sepuya’s career. The two talk about many things, but begin at how literature finds itself as a “constant thread” through all of Sepuya’s work. As a Black queer man, Sepuya has spoken about the particular influence of 20th century modernists like Richard Bruce Nugent, Truman Capote, and Virginia Woolf.
Looking at the connection between Sepuya and literature is an important place to start when reading Sepuya’s work and this book. The artist speaks to the author’s ability to build a character out of a real relationship, something he does in taking a portrait of someone. Everyone, the photographer and the authors, then go on to disseminate these works since, as Sepuya says they “…could seduce and smooth the way for other kinds of creative and cultural encounters.”
The conversation moves out of the Early Portraits series and into his later work as they discuss how Sepuya developed the habit of archiving together earlier works, books, and parts of his everyday life then (re)photographing them. This act runs from 2010 to his current work. It shows a working process and a reality of who Sepuya is. Al-Khundairi points out in one question, by bringing up that Sepuya started to incorporate his literal hand through fingerprints and smudges on a mirrored surface, which is present in much of his later work.
A Portrait (File0085), 2015
Photo Courtesy of the Artist and Aperture, New York and CAM St. Louis
After this, the book presents an essay by Evan Moffitt, a writer, editor, critic, and, most importantly for his contributions here, a model for Sepuya. The model or subject is an unfortunately overlooked contributor to most photos, so it is great to see Moffitt included and heard from. He is a wonderful writer and I would recommend that people check out his website and read the work he has done at Frieze.
Moffitt describes the first time he saw his portrait. Although Moffitt knew it was him, he didn’t recognize himself, “My picture isn’t for me, I know, but for people who will see me without us ever meeting.” This is a testament to Sepuya’s idea of how a portrait catches a character, not truly a person. It follows this idea as he goes through other photos and he is met with strangers or photos of friends that appear as strangers. This fits well with the idea of photo as an act of domination, an idea Moffitt expresses as well, because by its very nature it steals a subject’s moment as dictated by the photographer. It’s not a new thought but one delivered well by Moffitt.
Then starts the main body of images. Arranged in chronological order, with each page you see a step in the journey of Sepuya’s work. While it is a privilege to see all these images together, each one draws you in individually. There is a string that pulls all the way through his work: each image is highly intimate. Many are nude, but in a way that leans more towards comfortability than to vulgarity. To me, they bring in thoughts of domesticity and closeness. As a viewer, I’m witnessing a scene shared between the photographer, a friend or lover to many of the sitters, and someone who felt at home.
Ben, 2009
Photo Courtesy of the Artist and Aperture, New York and CAM St. Louis
His sitters in the Early Portraits look directly into the photographer’s eye and therefore into our eyes as well. Take Ben (2009), the titular subject sits in Sepuya’s bed, at the time a makeshift studio as well as home, and stares right at me, never breaking his gaze. His eyes are almost wistful as they look out. Calm and sweet and knowing. They seem to have already forgiven my, and any viewers, wondering or wandering eyes.
As it moves into the later works, this sometimes is true where one looks upon the subject, but the majority make the viewer themselves part of the subject. Through Sepuya’s use of a mirror, many photographs are filled with the reflection of the studio, a fabric backdrop, aforementioned fingerprints, and many times the photographer himself, camera in hand. The viewer looks straight down the barrel of the camera. Only an occasional portrait subject or prints of pervious works penned to the mirror break up the plane and remind us that we are not the subject. Instead many times the subject is the artist himself. A young black man dictating to us who he is, unfortunately rare even in the arts.
Mirror Study (0X5A1317), 2017
Photo Courtesy of the Artist and Aperture, New York and CAM St. Louis
It is amazing how effective these pictures are at bringing the viewer into the world of Paul Sepuya. Much like the gaze of the viewer in the Early Portraits being met so straight on invites the viewer to spend time looking at the environment they are in, one sees, as Grace Wales Bonnet puts it in her short essay for the book, “The contrast between romanticism (the drapery and tender nudes…) and pragmatic realism (the tools of production)”, both of which are highly engaging.
All of this together in one place paired with an excellent design make it the best book so far in 2020. It is worth mentioning the additional essays by Lucy Gallun, Ariel Goldberg, and Malik Gaines which are all well done but, for sake of length and a little intrigue, were left out of this review.