Susan Vogel

Susan M. Vogel lives in New York, grew up in Beirut, and has lived for long periods in a medieval city in Mali, and a village in Ivory Coast. She has published many books, and written a few, founded an art museum in New York – that survived her departure – and directed two museums. She then successfully completed two years as a MFA student in the New York University Graduate Film Department, and became a documentary film maker.

She has a Ph.D. in art history and is internationally recognized as a curator and African art expert. She has held the positions of curator for the African collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; founding Director of the Museum for African Art; and Director of the Yale University Art Gallery. Her last book « BAULE: African Art/Western Eyes » has been translated into French and received the Herskovits Prize, the African Studies Association’s highest honor for a book of original research on Africa. It was also runner up for the Victor Turner Prize of the American Anthropological Association. Her earlier books are still being quoted and irritating people. She is professor of art history at Columbia University, and recently received the prestigious Leadership Award of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association.

Susan Vogel is co-producing films on Malian culture in partnership with the Musée National du Mali. The next, on Dogon culture in the 21st century, is in pre-production. She is currently directing a film on the artist El Anatsui for the Museum for African Art, New York, shot in Venice, Nsukka Nigeria, and in the US. Funders of her films include the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, among others.

First Run/Icarus Films is pleased to distribute four of Ms. Vogel’s films:

* The Future of Mud – This is the story of Komusa Tenapo, master mason and heir to the secrets of Djenne architecture, the traditional use of mud in Malian buildings.

* Malick Sidibe: Portrait of the Artist as a Portraitist – Short but sweet look at the work of the renowned African artist whose photographs have documented social and cultural changes in Mali over a forty-year period.

* Living Memory: Six Sketches of Mali Today – About Mali’s ancient culture, and this culture’s position in the country today. Exposes tensions in a society assailed by modernization, Islam and global tourism, yet confident that it will maintain its own distinctive character.

* Fang: An Epic Journey – Mixes documentary and fiction techniques to recount an African art object’s 100 year journey – a whole century of Western attitudes towards African culture packed into 8 minutes!