Pieter Hugo
Messina/Musina
Musina is the northernmost town in South Africa. It lies on the Limpopo River on the border of Zimbabwe. The town was formerly known as Messina, and in 2002 its name was changed to correct a colonial misspelling of the name of the Musina people who previously lived in the region. Located in the heart of the bushveld with its hunting farms and diamonds mine, on the major trucking route north, it attracts a conglomeration of disparate peoples. They are drawn to this town by the opportunities it offers, be it working in the mines or on the farms, policing the porous border, smuggling contraband and alien immigrants, or prostitution. In his photographs of individuals, families, interiors, landscapes and incidental details, Hugo reflects on the wounds and scars of race, class and nationality that persist here, on the border of Zimbabwe, a country in the process of self-destructing. The circumstances of Musina can be also be seen as broadly reflective of any community that is confronted by transition.
Pieter Hugo was born in Johannesburg in 1976 and lives in Cape Town. He has held solo exhibitions at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Roma; the Fabrica Features, Lisbon; Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town; Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva; and Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles. Recent group exhibitions include “Face to Face” at Forma International Centre of Photography, Milan; the 27th São Paulo Biennial; “Street: Behind the Cliché” at Witte de With, Rotterdam; “reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, 2005-2025” at the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, and Aperture Gallery, New York. He won first prize in the Portraits section of the 2006 World Press Photo competition, and was selected by Getty Images as one of their Young Photographers 2006. He is the recipient of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art 2007. He is the recipient of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art 2007.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)