What separates, what connects us? How do people live with the shadows of cultural oppression or political domination? The South African photographer Pieter Hugo, born in 1976 in Johannesburg, explores these questions in his portraits, still lifes and landscape photographs. In his images, Pieter Hugo captures the traces and scars of people as well as the country’s history. His special interest is subcultures, the gap between ideal and reality. He portrays the homeless, albinos and AIDS sufferers as well as men who tame hyenas, snakes and monkeys or collect electronic waste. His models are Nollywood actors (African film industry) in costume and pose, but also his own family and friends. This is brought together in the exhibition Pieter Hugo: Between the devil and the deep blue sea, a retrospective of the photographer’s career at the Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte in Dortmund, in Germany, on view until May 13, 2018.
