pieter hugo

Pieter Hugo is a photographer working in South Africa. The photographs below from his most recent monograph “The Hyena and Other man” (2007) set off mixed emotions from curiosity to incredulity. In our attempt to understand the pictures we surround photographs with myths and imaginary incredible stories. For us Europeans there is something exotic almost Gauguinesque in these photographs. Who are these men?
The photographs tell us stories of traveling entertainers, tales of power, control, reliance on each other and obedience. In this mixture of the urban environment and the undomesticated nature is the impossible self-contradictory relationship between the masters and their “pets”. Completely different, affectionate and caring, violent and fierce components of the relationships unite as they become evident in the photographs.
However, it is not just a group of traveling entertainers portrayed, there are many economic and humanist issues that lie beneath the exoticism of the depicted subject.