"New Photography from Africa" @ The Walther Collection, New York

Opening: Thursday, February 4, 6-8pm Close to Home New Photography from Africa Andrew Esiebo, Sabelo Mlangeni, Mimi Cherono Ng'ok, Musa Nxumalo, and Thabiso Sekgala Mimi Cherono Ng'ok, Chebet and Chemu in the garden, from The Other Country, 2008-2014.  Courtesy the artist and The Walther Collection Close to Home New Photography from Africa Opening Reception:  Thursday, February 4, from 6pm-8pm The Walther Collection Project Space 526 West 26th Street, Suite 718 | New York City The Walther Collection is pleased to announce the second installment of its multi-year exhibition series on contemporary photography and video art from Africa. Presented thematically from 2015 to 2017, and expanding the collection's longstanding focus on African photography, this program features a diverse range of emerging artists who are exploring new visions of social identity in Africa and the African Diaspora. It will culminate in spring 2017 with a major exhibition at The Walther Collection's museum in Neu-Ulm, Germany, which will be accompanied by a catalogue co-published by Steidl. Close to Home brings together five young photographers who represent a powerful new vision of portrait photography in Africa. Andrew Esiebo (Nigeria), Sabelo Mlangeni (South Africa), Mimi Cherono Ng'ok (Kenya), Musa Nxumalo (South Africa), and Thabiso Sekgala (South Africa) explore intense social relationships, vividly documenting the flawed beauty of everyday life.  Through intimate portrayals of friends and family, in-depth accounts of eclectic sub-cultures and communities, and typological studies of professions, the artists in Close to Home explore the emotional ties between subject and landscape, engaging with complex senses of belonging and self-identification. Together, working between familiarity and distance, self- discovery and generational portrait, these artists are at the vanguard of visual storytelling.