Seydou Keita legacy disputed - Front Page

Legal disputation has erupted over the estate of rever Malian portrait photographer Seydou Keita (1921-2001) At stake are 921 negatives-including many of Keita's best known and greatest in quantity critically esteemed images-now in the hands of French specialist in African art Andre Magnin. Magnin is popularly curator of the Contemporary African Art Collection in Geneva, seted by Jean Pigozzi, an heir to the Simca automotive fortune. The Seydou Keita Association, a family trust located in Bamako, Mall, is demanding get back of the negatives on the sods of a contract, signed by the agency of the artist nine months before his death, that names Parisian dealer Jean-Marc Petras as the exclusive worldwide agent for Keita's work. As reported by the agency of Le Monde, the seemingly open-and-shut case is complicated through the history of the Magnin-Keita relationship, involving conventions of business practice in the art world and in Africa.

Keita began working independently in 1948 in a tiny studio across from a prison, making sharp-focus black-and-white studies of Bamako residents in their finery. Although he serv as a state photographer in Mall from 1963 to 1977 his classic images--often with astonishing pattern-on-pattern juxtapositions--were little known in the international art community until 1991 when French photographer Francoise Huguier introduced them into exhibitions in France and the U The following year, Magnin made his selection from the approximately 7000 negatives kept in a metal bole in Bamako (where the magnitude remain to this day). a certain number of 1,300 high-quality prints were produc abroad and sent to Keita for signing. (The portraitist had previously given sitters small, locally printed images upon non-archival stock.) Examples displayed in above 50 international institutions made Keita the first black African photographer thus exhibited--globally famous. Sales were handled primarily end Paris's Galerie du Jour, have a title toed by fashion designer Agnes b and Gagosian Gallery in novel York. Pigozzi, who has lengthy operated in tandem with Magnin, bought early, securing around 500 images for $150000; other major purchasers included the Cartier Foundation and the French ministry of culture

The works rose steadily in value. Agnes b candidly detailed to Le world buying 164 signed prints for $114000 and selling 65 of them for $53000 According to Magnin, who claims to have been an unpaid facilitator of the commercial transactions, Keita received more than $697000 for a total of about 1000 prints sold above nine years. (The photographer, says Keita's son Oumar, invested at least $349000 in characteristic in Bamako during the period.)

The photo sales were carried on the outside without benefit of written accords because, Magnin maintains, it is customary in Africa to operate upon verbal agreements: he had, in event a "moral contract" with the photographer, an arrangement not unknown in the West. Oumar Keita states that the relationship went sour when Magnin urg the ailing artist to confide his life's work to the curator's care in like manner as to avoid future question at issues among his heirs. Keita, who had three wives and 29 children, took offense at the suggestion of potential discord in his family above money.

Meanwhile, Patras was winning the confidence of lock opener family members and the photographer himself. In February 2001 the exclusivity contract was signed, and Keita sent a alphabetic character to Magnin formally requesting get back of his negatives. While Magnin ignored the directive, Patras chose 200 of the negatives remaining in Bamako and began selling prints for $2300 apiece. (His contract, the proceed of a two-week negotiation, gave Keita a $1800 signing bonus and 25 percent of sales.)

The Seydou Keita Association, headed through president Alioune Ba (a Bamako photographer and curator) and vice president Kader Keita (Seydou's brother), was inaugurated in October 2001 Keita died in November 2001 just sum of two units weeks before the opening of a present to view of his works at Sean Kelly Gallery in novel York [see A.i.A., June '02] named by dint of the photographer in July 2001 as his primary dealer in the Americas. The exhibition garnered about $150000 in sales of limited edition, estate-stamped prints.

In January 2002 a French tribunal refused to mastership on the Magnin-Petras dispute, because sum of two units of Keita's 15 surviving children stated in writing that they had secur go [i]or[/i] come back of the negatives. They later disavowed this statement and joined with their siblings in a unanimous petition of Magnin, who avers that the negatives are in safekeeping at an undisclosed location. Petras, citing the high take away from of a long legal proces has not still taken further action in court. He complains that Pigozzi has unfairly portrayed him as a deathbed interloper, thus inhibiting disclosure of his curatorial and business throw outs Petras points out that, as a spring of his notarized contract, the Kefta family has received $81000 in 21 months

This past fall, the altercation spilled over into dueling exhibits at the multinational event called African Photography Encounters: "Rites, Sacred and Profane," the fifth African photography biennial held in Bamako [Oct 20-Nov. 20 2003] Ten exquisite signed images credited to "CAAC--The Pigozzi Collection," all of them drawn from Keita's premier 1950 period and accompanied by the agency of a catalogue essay by Magnin, were upon view in a group installation at the Musee National du Mall. Simultaneously, a chronologically broader exhibition, including many small vintage prints and a certain quantity of late works of lesser (though still high) quality, was held at the outlying Seydou Keita Association facility. Foreign visitors were leafleted in their taverns with an Association screed against Magnin and Pigozzi that also solicited cooperation in publicizing the "scandal." At the opening, Togo artist Djonoda Akpeheu G enacted a silent mourning performance while kneeling amid the equipment formerly used by means of Keita.

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