Autobiography of a pen 1000 words photography
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On the evocative power of blur
Mame-Diarra Niang’s Remember to Forget, on view until recently at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation in Paris, upends traditional norms of photographic representation. Through the abstraction of Black bodies and the evocative power of blur, Niang navigates the boundaries between visibility and opacity, pulling viewers into a dreamlike space where identity is self-imagined, and complexity resists reduction. Drawing on the works of Fred Moten, Édouard Glissant, Tebogo George Mahashe, and others, Taous Dahmani reflects on her visit to the exhibition.
Taous Dahmani | Exhibition review | 23 Jan 2025
In recent years, as I meandered through the labyrinthine corridors of contemporary art fairs, I funnen myself consistently drawn to the vibrant, blurred compositions of Mame-Diarra Niang. Within the abstraction, laid the fleeting hint of portraits, only just discernible, prompting me to wonder what drove the French visual artist to
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When we started selling pens on-line, James, Tom and I decided that we wanted to give potential customers as much information about the products as we could. On the understanding that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, we thought that it would be a good idea to provide as many appropriate product images as was reasonable.
However, we soon discovered that while manufacturers are happy to provide images, the range was limited, usually to a standard ‘letterbox’ shot and it was very rare to find images which showed any detail. It was decided that we would take our own. This was the start of a very steep learning curve, as although all three of us took pictures, we soon discovered that product photography was a whole new ball game.
It also meant that we had to have the stock: something most of our competitors don’t.
We started with an old Minolta digital SLR camera, and a photography tent, both bought from e-bay. A professional photographer friend
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Poetry reading. Zurich, Switzerland. 1966. © Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos
“Some photographs are like a Chekhov short story or a Maupassant story. They’re quick things and there’s a whole world in them.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
The upcoming Square Print Sale: Fable marks the first-ever collaboration with a literary partner in the sale’s 10-year history and represents its latest evolution. Pairing image and text is far from a new phenomenon for Magnum though. Since the beginning, photographers have collaborated with writers to produce memorable and impactful news stories, various photo books, projects that start in unusual ways, histories that might not be told otherwise, and work that subverts the traditional power dynamics of photography.
In the Beginning, There Was (Also) the Word
The history of Magnum photographers partnering with writers goes back to the cooperative’s establishment in 1947. Cofounder Robert Capa and author John St