Exhibition dates: 15th March – 8th June 2014
Curators: Els Barents, David Goldblatt
Artists: David Goldblatt met Paul Alberts, Pieter Hugo, Santu Mofokeng, Sabelo Mlangeni, Zanele Muholi, Jo Ractliffe, Michael Subotzky, Guy Tillim, Graeme Williams and others, and the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg
Santu Mofokeng (South African, 1956-2020)
Sunflowers harvest, Vaalrand farm, Bloemhof
1988
From the Bloemhof Series, 1988-1989, 1994
A raft of exhibitions finishing on the 8th June 2014 means a lot of postings over the next few days. This posting continues my fascination with African photography. The two excellent photographs by David Goldblatt are the stand out here, along with the portrait by Mikhael Subotzky.
Marcus
Many thankx to Huis Marseille for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Santu Mofokeng (South African, 1956-2020)
Windmill, Vaalrand
1988
From the Bloemhof Series, 1988-1989, 1994
Jo Ractliffe (South African, b. 1961)
Military watchtower in a domestic garden, Riemvasmaak
2013
From The Borderlands (2011-2013)
Jo Ractliffe (South African, b. 1961)
Playing soccer with marbles, Platfontein
2012
From The Borderlands (2011-2013)
Graeme Williams (South African, b. 1958)
Kempton Park
Nd
From Previously Important Places series 1990s -2013
The Emperors Palace Casino and Chariots Entertainment World was build on the site [ in… add please date and place… ]? were the negotiations leading up to the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) took place. Now, at the very same place a statue of the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus greets visitors at the entrance of the afore mentioned entertainment centre.
Pieter Hugo (South African, b. 1976)
In Sipho Ntsibande’s Home, Soweto
2013
from the series Kin, 2013
Guy Tillim (South African, b. 1962)
Neri James, Petros Village, Malawi
2006
from the series Petros Village, 2006
“The scars left in South Africa’s collective memory by its apartheid regime were also inscribed visually on its collective retina. There is less consensus, however, on the period of ‘truth and reconciliation’ after political apartheid came to an end in South Africa in 1990. The exhibition Apartheid and After addresses the question: where did photographers whose earlier work had opposed the apartheid regime point their cameras after 1980?
They include David Goldblatt, for instance, now an éminence grise of South African photography whose exhibition Cross Sections hung in Huis Marseille and others. Has South African democracy been given a face? Where is the real development happening? And where are the scars? Has South African national identity got stuck on a runaway merry-go-round, as the South African visual artist William Kentridge has suggested? One thing is clear: after apartheid, most South African photographers continued to make their own country their work domain, and in doing so they have gained a considerable international reputation.”
“It is astonishing to think that until the beginning of the 1990s, merely two decades ago, modern and contemporary African photography was largely in the shadows.”
Okwui Enwezor in Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity: Contemporary African Photography from the Walther Collection, Steidl, 2013, p. 23.
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018)
Child minder, Joubert Park, Johannesburg, 1975 (no.11)
1975
From the series Particulars, 2003 (publishing date)
David Goldblatt (South African, 1930-2018)
Man on a beach, Joubert Park, Johannesburg, 1975 (no. 2)
1975
From the series Particulars, 2003 (publishing date)
Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, b. 1980)
Coming to Johannesburg I, January, 2011
2011
Sabelo Mlangeni (South African, b. 1980)
Coming to Johannesburg I, January, 2011
2011
Daniel Naudé (South African, b. 1984)
Africanis 23. Richmond, Northern Cape, 298 January 2009
2009
Mikhael Subotzky (South African, b. 1981)
Joseph Dlamini (Eye test), Matsho Tsmombeni squatter camp
2012
From the series Retinal Shift
Graeme Williams (South African, b. 1958)
Nelson Mandela speaks at CODESA, 199..?
Nd
From Previously Important Places series 1990s-2013
Zanele Muholi (South African, b. 1972)
Being (T)here (Amsterdam)
2009
Paul Alberts (South African, 1946-2010)
The portraits of the applicants
1994
As the 1994 election approached in South-Africa many blacks living in small towns and rural areas had never been officially identified. In order to speed up these otherwise slow procedures, Charmaine and Paul Alberts set up an official, but temporary office and studio to process applications. The portraits of the applicants were taken before a paper back drop in the community hall of Majwemasweu. Each person held a slate with a number that corresponded to the number of the film and exposure, plus their name and place where they lived.
Huis Marseille – Museum for Photography
Keizersgracht 401
1016 EK Amsterdam
Opening hours:
Daily 10am – 6pm
Thursday 10am – 9pm
Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive 
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