HYPERALLERGIC | Bansie Vasvani:

Self-portraits have been part of art history ever since artists used their own reflections to determine how a viewer might perceive them. This trope of self-empowerment takes a different turn with Senegalese photographer Omar Victor Diop’s series of self-portraits in his debut US exhibition, Project Diaspora, at the SCAD Fashion Museum in Atlanta.

Diop’s discovery during a residency in Spain of a classical painting by Diego Velasquez of his African assistant Juan de Pareja led to his investigation of other European representations of prominent African figures who have long been relegated to the dustbin of history… Read more

Image: Omar Victor Diop, “Frederick Douglass (1818–1895)” (2014), pigment inkjet print on Harman Hahnemuhle paper, 47 1/4 x 31 1/2 in. (all images courtesy of the artist and Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris, France, unless noted)