Samuel Fosso: Man of a thousand faces

In art-world circles, Fosso is often spoken of as Central Africa’s answer to Cindy Sherman. But Sherman’s art evolved in the waning years of the American dream, amid the heady bohemia of late-1970s Manhattan. Fosso arrived at his signature style, while a teenage refugee living in Bangui, the remote capital of the Central African Republic. How this 13-year-old survivor of the Nigerian-Biafran War, drawing from the tradition of African studio portraiture but working in near total isolation, anticipated developments at the cutting edge of contemporary Western art is a mystery in which the artist’s love of fashion plays no small part.

from Man of a Thousand Faces by Leslie Camhi. New York Times T Magazine, Men’s Fashion Spring 2009