In October 2010, I was one of seven African curators invited by the Tate Modern in London to talk about our recent exhibitions. During those few days we visited, as a group, Autograph at Rivington Place, then showing the photographic exhibition James Barnor: Ever Young. I was struck by this exhibition: the conceptualization, the history contained in the images, the power of the photography and of the curating, the beauty of and in the images, the finesse of the printing and the overall installation. A few months later, in 2011, I organized to show the exhibition at the South African National Gallery (SANG)—in partnership with Autograph and with the assistance of the British Council—where I was director at the time. It was the first tour of the exhibition following the inaugural Autograph show and significantly, the first—and perhaps only—to the African continent thus far. James Barnor attended the opening at the SANG and was so excited to see his images displayed abroad, he paid his own way from London to Cape Town to be there again for the closing week of the show a few months later.

Fast-forward seven years and guess who I ran into at the 2018 Paris Photo last year, and then in June this year as a fellow resident artist at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris? Why, none other than the same master photographer James Barnor! I caught up with the legendary Ghanaian photographer on the occasion of his 90th birthday celebrations and his latest solo exhibition entitled Colors then running at Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière in Paris.

Barnor filled me in on his rags to riches story: the exhibition Steve Flynn and Rachel Pepper were involved in organizing at the Acton Arts Festival in 2004 via the Acton Arts Forum; his subsequent inclusion in the exhibition Ghana at 50 curated by Nana Oforiatta Ayim at the Black Cultural Archives (BCA) in London in 2007; and following that the meeting between curator Renée Mussai and himself that led to his first major solo entitled Ever Young: James Barnor at Autograph, London in the autumn of 2010, which also doubled as his retrospective exhibition, touring internationally since.

The Autograph show set the standard and art professionals, institutions and collectors started to take notice of Barnor’s work with the exhibition travelling to Cape Town; the Impressions Gallery in Bradford in the United Kingdom (2013); Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière, Paris (2015); Stony Island Art Bank, Chicago, USA (2016); Black Artists’ Network in Dialogue (BAND), Toronto, Canada (2016); The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA (2016). This was after a smaller iteration exhibition preview at Harvard University’s Rudenstine Gallery in 2010, a few months prior to the opening at Autograph. As a result Barnor’s work has since been acquired by international private and public collections in the United Kingdom such as the Eric and Louise Franck Collection (now at Tate Britain), Government Art Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery in the UK, as well as further afield including the Wedge Collection (Canada) and Musée du quai Branly (France), etc.

Barnor’s photographs were first formally displayed in Ghana in an exhibition at the British Council and Silverbird Lounge, Accra Mall (2012). Since then his pictures have been included in group exhibitions on photography held at Nasher Museum, Duke University, USA (2012); Tate Britain, England (2012); Tropenmuseum, Netherlands (2014) and in 2015 at The Photographers’ Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Foam Fotographiemuseum, (Netherlands).

Since his gallery Clémentine de la Féronnière showed Ever Young: James Barnor in Paris (2015) in partnership with Autograph, it has been busy days with Barnor’s work presented at the 11th biennale des Rencontres de Bamako, Mali (2017), Musée du quai Branly, vitrine jardin, Paris, France (2017-18), Mupho Musée de la Photographie, Saint Louis, Sénégal and Gallery 1957, Kempinski Hotel, Accra, Ghana, the latter two in 2018.

The interview is based on a spontaneous “stream of consciousness” (her words) via on-going email conversations since June 2019 with Renée Mussai.