Lucky Jim : James Barnor

This new chapter from his archive presents a set of unpublished prints, around the question of the self-portrait and its own staging. His journey, from pre-independence Ghana to the UK, is full of iconic images. From the classic studio shots of the years 1950, we already felt the personality and malice of the photographer. The proximity and ease of the press images, independence in 1957, then those tinted fashion of the years 1960, made guess his catchy personality. The photographs of the diaspora in Great Britain are witnesses of great moments of friendship that the photographer lived, these encounters that changed his life. Finally, when he returned to Ghana at the beginning of the years 1970, he excelled in the staging, whether it was to have an assistant with development chemistry cans instead of a color chart, or the series that served to illustrate the calendar of the brand Agip in 1974.

In this exhibition, this is how James Barnor we find in the witness images of his life: young father straight on his legs posing with his first son in baptism dress in the courtyard of his studio in Ghana; him again, wearing his kente in front of a sign "England", seized by his great friend Dennis Kemp; He already, in the years 1950, in a striped suit, catching an event. More than winks, these images seem to be the soul of the archive, unearthed today in the light of his life.

The archive of James Barnor, which has been classified and recorded with James Barnor at the gallery, between 2017 and 2021, was in recent years, the fruit of numerous studies, research and exhibitions, which have allowed a recognition of the general public of his work.

It is a great joy to present a new side. On October 22 will open at Fondation Cartier the exhibition Harvest Time, by Ibrahim Mahama. The links between James Barnor and Ibrahim Mahama are multiple: Ghana yes, but also the awareness of the importance of the archive, recording, and the question of the return and participation of the younger generations in Ghana. Ibrahim Mahama has selected for this presentation in the new space of the Fondation Cartier several parts of the work of the photographer, including the images of the Agip series, the same images that we had exhibited in his Tamale art center in 2024 during the festival that we had produced on the occasion of his 95 years are still visible there. This event will mark the return of James Barnor to Paris, a meeting program will be announced at a later date.