Autograph ABP is a lovely, big, open gallery space not far from Old Street tube station, devoted to exhibitions of photography by people of colour. It has just finished a ravishing exhibition by Senegalise photographer Omar Victor Diop, born 1980 in Dakar.

Thiaroye 1944 by Omar Victor Diop

The ground floor exhibition space displays thirty beautiful digital photographs which feature Diop himself wearing the historical costumes of black people from defining moments in history. The photos are divided into two distinct projects:

Liberty: A Universal Chronology of Black Protest

This series reinterprets defining moments of historical revolt and black struggle in Africa and the diaspora. Diop dresses up as characters from key events such as the Alabama marches on Washington (Selma 1965), lesser-known resistance movements against colonial oppression in southeastern Nigeria (The Women’s War 1929) and the more recent Million Hoodie March in New York.

Selma 1965 by Omar Victor Diop

Diop appears as the main character throughout the series, but also – thank to modern digital wizardry – sometimes also appears multiple times, as African railway workers, French migrants, Second World War soldiers, Jamaican maroons and members of the Black Panther Party, as appropriate.

The Ibo Women’s War 1929 by Omar Victor Diop

The most immediately obvious thing about all the photos is how stunningly beautiful Diop is.

I took my teenage son to the exhibition with me and he agreed. He didn’t read any of the historic stories or references, he just enjoyed them as images in which an absolutely gorgeous young black man gets to dress up in lots of historical costumes.

Omar Ibn Said (1770-1864) by Omar Victor Diop

Project Diaspora

The second series is titled Project Diaspora. Once again Omar dresses up and photographs himself in images quoting or parodying portraits celebrating four centuries of notable Africans in the diaspora.

These include:

• Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), the abolitionist leader who was the most photographed person of his time
• Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) a freed slave, writer and activist in London
• St Bénédicte de Palermo (1526-1589), a saint in the Catholic and Lutheran church
• Prince Dom Nicolau (c.1830-1860), the Congolese African leader
• August Sabac El Cher (c.1836-1885), an early Afro-German soldier
• Jean-Baptise Belley (1746-1805), who fought during the French Revolution, and so on

Jean-Baptiste Belley (1746-1805) by Omar Victor Diop

Each of these characters has an extensive wall label describing who they were and what they did and why they matter. For example,

Jean-Baptiste Belley was a native of Senegal, born on the island of Gorée and former slave of Santo Domingo in the West Indies who bought his freedom with his savings. During the period of the French Revolution, he became a member of the National Convention and the Council of Five Hundreds of France. He was also known as Mars. Original painting by Girodet.

I found it a struggle to assimilate so many diverse historical periods and events, and my son didn’t bother but just enjoyed the sheer beauty of Omar himself, captured in enormous photographs which are all composed with a strange, interplanetary calmness.

Installation view of Liberty/Diaspora by Omar Victor Diop

And the footballs? I wondered whether you’d notice that. In many of the historic poses the figure is holding a modern plastic football, often very prominent, brightly coloured and incongruous. Why?

In Diop’s own words:

‘Football is an interesting global phenomenon that for me often reveals where society is in terms of race. When you look at the way that the African football royalty is perceived in Europe, there is an interesting blend of glory, hero-worship and exclusion. Every so often, you get racist chants or banana skins thrown on the pitch and the whole illusion of integration is shattered in the most brutal way. It’s that kind of paradox I am investigating in the work.’

A beautiful young man dressed up in historical costumes and carrying a football. What more could you ask for in a photography exhibition?

Related links

• Liberty / Diaspora by Omar Victor Diop at Autograph ABP ended on 3 November 2018
• BBC video interview with Omar Victor Diop
• Omar Victor Diop website

Reviews of other Autograph shows

• I Am Now You – Mother by Marcia Michael @ Autograph ABP (June 2018)
• Devotion: A Portrait of Loretta by Franklyn Rodgers @ Autograph ABP (June 2018)

Review of photography exhibitions

• New East Photo Prize 2018 @ Calvert 22 (December 2018)
• Shirley Baker: Personal Collection @ the Photographers’ Gallery (June 2018)
• Alex Prager: Silver Lake Drive @ the Photographers’ Gallery (June 2018)
• Tish Murtha: Works 1976 – 1991 @ the Photographers’ Gallery (June 2018)
• Killed Negatives @ the Whitechapel Gallery (June 2018)
• Work in Process (May 2018)
• Under Cover: A Secret History Of Cross-Dressers @ the Photographers’ Gallery (May 2018)
• Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize @ the Photographers’ Gallery (May 2018)
• The Great British Seaside @ National Maritime Museum (May 2018)
• Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins @ the Barbican (April 2018)
• Andreas Gursky @ the Hayward Gallery (April 2018)
• Post-Soviet Visions @ Calvert 22 Foundation (March 2018)
• Illuminating India @ the Science Museum (February 2018)
• Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2017 @ the National Portrait Gallery (January 2018)
• Syria: A Conflict Explored @ the Imperial War Museum (May 2017)
• The Radical Eye @ Tate Modern (March 2017)
• Malick Sidibé @ Somerset House (January 2017)
• Don McCullin (March 2017)
• Shaped by War by Don McCullin (2010)
• Unreasonable Behaviour by Don McCullin (2015)
• Paul Strand: Photography and Film for the 20th Century @ the V and A (June 2016)
• Beard @ Somerset House (March 2015)
• Performing for the Camera @ Tate Modern (March 2016)
• Unseen City: Photos by Martin Parr @ Guildhall Art Gallery (March 2016)
• Peter Kennard @ Imperial War Museum London (May 2015)
• Salt and Silver @ Tate Britain (April 2015)
• Conflict, Time, Photography @ Tate Modern (March 2015)
• Everything Was Moving: Photography from the 60s and 70s @ the Barbican (November 2012)