In Samuel Fosso’s 2008 self-portrait from his African Spirits series—included in Hayward Gallery’s Drag: Self-Portraits and Body Politics, which opens tomorrow—he assumes the identity of American activist Angela Davis. Fosso experienced all kinds of oppression firsthand: born in Cameroon, he moved to Nigeria as a child, but aged thirteen was forced to flee the Biafran War, ending up in Central African Republic where he set up a photography studio as a way to make a living. When the studio was shut up at night, Fosso would perform for his own camera, conjuring the spirits of his heroes; Davis among them. The title of Fosso’s photograph is particularly meaningful in this context: when we dress-up, we often become who we really are—as Luigi Pirandello might have put it, drag is a naked mask.
