5th Nov, 2020 19:00
Aspire X PLP | African Photography Auction 2020
24
Calvin Dondo (Zimbabwe 1963-)
Mrs Ples Calling
archival ink print on Tecco cotton rag
Artwork date: 2016
Signature details: accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist
Edition: number 1 from an edition of 10
Condition Report
The condition is mint.
Please note, we are not qualified conservators and these reports give our opinion as to the general condition of the works. We advise that bidders view the lots in person to satisfy themselves with the condition of prospective purchases.
archival ink print on Tecco cotton rag
Artwork date: 2016
Signature details: accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist
Edition: number 1 from an edition of 10
(1)
image size: 54.5 x 82 cm, sheet size: 60.5 x 88 cm, unframed
Notes:
Calvin Dondo is an established artist and curator. He studied photography at Harare Polytechnic from 1985 – 1988, and his work as a freelance photographer has been published in various local and international publications. His first monograph, Hodhii Zimbabwe, was published in 2014. Dondo represented Zimbabwe at the 54th Venice Biennale and has exhibited at the Havana Biennale, Havana; Paris Photo, Paris; and multiple times at Bamako Encounters – African Biennale of Photography. He has also exhibited work at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; Yokohama Museum of Modern Art, Yokohama; Manchester City Art Gallery, Manchester; Salzburg Modern Art Museum, Salzburg; and the Centre for Contemporary Art, Barcelona. He has won a number of awards, including the Grand Prize at Bamako Encounters (2007) and the Konrad Adenauer Special Press Prize. His passion for storytelling through images earned Dondo wide international acclaim. He is the founder and curator of GWANZA, an artists’ collective which organises the annual Month of Photography exhibition in Zimbabwe. This photograph is part of a project to document the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa. It stems from an interest in the history of humankind and the origins in Africa. ‘Mrs Ples’, as the remains are famously called, is the first full skeleton that has been found of human ancestry. The title refers to a ‘calling’, to invoke an ancestral connection. The work has never been exhibited.
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Auction: Aspire X PLP | African Photography Auction 2020, 5th Nov, 2020
A collection of pan-African works, straddling the terrain between historical and contemporary photography, were auctioned to support the digitisation of African photographic legacies by the Photography Legacy Project (PLP). Bidders participated from across Europe, the USA and UK, Asia, Australia and Africa – a testament to Aspire’s increasing global reach and collectors’ enthusiasm for African photography.
The auction included photographic luminaries such as David Goldblatt, Alf Kumalo, G.R. Naidoo, Ranjith Kally and Ian Berry, as well as more contemporary internationally acclaimed photographers like Guy Tillim, Jo Ractliffe, Syowia Kyambi and Mikhael Subotzky. The lead lot, a portfolio of 12 silver gelatin prints from the legendary photographer Ernest Cole’s seminal 1967 book House of Bondage sold for an astounding R569,000 – a new world auction record.
HIGHLIGHTS
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