Pieter Hugo

Pieter Hugo was born in 1976 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Abandoning photojournalism in his early twenties, he developed a very personal style which has become widely acclaimed. He has received many awards. Hugo has produced three monographs: Looking Aside (2006), Messina/Musina (2007) and The Hyena & Other Men (2007). Pieter Hugo is represented by four galleries (Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town; Yosi Milo Gallery, New York; Galerie Betrand and Gruner, Geneva; Extrapazio, Rome). In 2008 he won the KLM Paul Huf Award, an international prize for talented photographers under thirty-five, organized by Foam_Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam. The 'Nollywood' series was shot in Nigeria, where the rapidly-growing film industry is now the third largest in the world after Hollywood and Bollywood. Intrigued by the melodramatic narrative of this hyperactive industry Pieter Hugo photographed some forty actors for this series, blurring the boundaries between fiction and documentary.