Lazhar Mansouri at Westwood Gallery!

Westwood Gallery is pleased to present a premiere U.S. exhibition of photographs by Lazhar Mansouri (1932-1985). Fifty five silver gelatin photographs represent a portion of over 100,000 portraits captured by this dedicated Algerian photographer. From 1950 through 1980, Mansouri photographed the inhabitants of Kabylie and Aln Belda, his home town in Northern Algeria . When Mansouri was a child, he accompanied his grandmother to the local street market, a community meeting place and bazaar, where he met a photographer who had a studio in back of a grocery store. The photographer hired him and through an apprenticeship, Mansouri learned the craft of photography. Eventually, he left to open his own studio in the back of a barber shop, dedicated to portraiture. After years of documenting everyday people in the region, Mansouri inadvertently created a photographic archive, a legacy of images representing people and tribes rarely photographed. During this period, Algeria went through war and political turmoil as the country fought for independence from France ; however the stability of Mansouri’s studio was evident in the thousands of people he captured. The images are a commentary of the time (gallery will exhibit 1950-1970), reflected through families, youth, tribes and military, with an emphasis on custom, kitsch, fashion and a familiar need for youth to be represented as cool. Young Algerian children are posed, somewhat uncomfortable looking, dressed in costumes, mini suits or sunglasses, holding guitars or standing near plastic plants. Teenagers wear leather jackets and pose with cigarettes dangling from their mouth. Engaged couples are captured in a kiss or replaying the moment of the ring engagement. In one photograph a village family stands rigid with three young daughters in the front row, yet off to the side is the teenage son in a relaxed pose holding a large transistor radio as a sign of his youth. In most photographs there is rarely a smile, since it was a moment to taken seriously to result in a treasured family photo. Plastic plants, columns and various patterned curtains were used as backdrops in the studio. In addition to the family portraits, Mansouri took hundreds of photos of Berber women with tattooed faces. These women never took off their veil for any man, except their husband, so the photo archive Mansouri created is exceptional. Luckily, the patrimony of photographs was saved by another photographer after Mansouri admitted he may have to burn the negatives due to the changing social and political climate. However, today Algerian cultural organizations value the photographs for their historic and artistic contribution. http://www.westwoodgallery.com