Cameroon-born Dutch female photographer Angèle Etoundi Essamba’s unique vision of women, especially in the sensitive expression of African and black women, has come to form a new interpretation of the cultural upheaval of the African community in the context of globalization. Through the black women under her lens, the viewer gains a glimpse into the private face of contemporary Africa. The photogenic color contrasts and the dark faces in the images constitute the theme of Angèle’s art : humanity. The expression of human nature is the one common trait in all of her work. She does not focus on pioneering forms or emphasize public visual impact. She has always strived to express ultimate values through the power of affinity in her art: timelessness and freedom.

Angèle’s works are not just the expression of African cultural conflict between tradition and modernism, but also the embodiment of the defense of feminine consciousness. The exhibition goes beyond cultural collision to evoke a sense of cultural awareness and self-awareness. This is the reason that I have chosen to present the first retrospective of the works of this African artist in a public exhibition at Li Space in Beijing. The exhibition creates a unique opportunity to explore and share Angèle’s art with Chinese audiences.

Since 1985 Angèle Etoundi Essamba's photographs firstly have been exhibited in Amsterdam, the artist has been joint the active artistic world to show a rich cultural point of view and aesthetic taste of her own African tone with its black culture, particularly sensitive to visual capture of black women, and its new interpretation of the African famines and community in the context of globalization and war.  Angèle's artistic vision, freshly render a strong color and vitality behind the community in hunger, poverty and disease of the stereotypical representations of Africa. The public media and the audience through Angèle's art perspective and her female vision, clearly captures the pride and the national awakening of the people of Africa.   The sense of identity as an important symbol of Angèle photography, restore the artist's own cultural identity , and has been a important point to her art buckle into contemporary African social situation and political environment.

Angèle grew up in a multicultural background, through his own works in addition to the early years of experience in the Netherlands and Paris, her own frequent and active plunge into art activities, artist soul of the African world in new ways displayed her multiple identities and aesthetics of her work, in terms of the demands of the sense of identity, as well as the balance of consciousness, realism, and social relations, has its own unique perspective. Through Angèle's still images of black women, we are not only get a glimpse into a contemporary African private facade faces, also notice her works that express a kind of wake up and call of contemporary African's social equality of women. Angèle's arts emphasis in the contrasting lenses expression and portraits, constitute another important theme of her art: the expression of humanity. Humanity has been attached in almost all her photography. She does not focus on the form of pioneer distortions in the figures, and even the impact of public visual expression, her angle is a clean, simple black face, which could refine her artistic value: the eternal humanity and spirit freedom. Eternal humanity and spirit freedom is indeed the purpose of Mr. Gu Zhenqing, as a independent curator, bringing us Angèle's works to the Chinese public.

Democracy and civil rights, even in the long history of African culture is a most unbearable subject, but Angèle through her arts transfer to the silent way into the expression of beauty, not just to defend the self-awareness of women's rights, but to "discuss" the conflict between African social traditions and modernism. The exhibition will bring the Chinese audience a nearly distance and close opportunity to Angèle and her works of art. The opportunity, as a cultural sharing, is a exploration and reflection to cultural awareness and self-awareness in an art exchange way.