Overview
We are pleased to announce the third solo show of South African photographer David Goldblatt. We will be showing a selection of photographs, which surveys almost 60 years of the artist’s career.
Series after series, David Goldblatt seeks to understand the complex values that constitute the fabric of his country. He observes the social and political evolution of South-African society; from the universe of the Afrikaners, the black South Africans, to deep level gold mining. His photos from the “TJ” series depict Johannesburg in black and white from the 1950’s and more recently in color. These images witness the torments of this city during Apartheid and since the end of the segregationist regime.
David Goldblatt
15 January - 19 February 2011
We are pleased to announce the third solo show of South African photographer David Goldblatt. We will be showing a selection of photographs, which surveys almost 60 years of the artist’s career.
Series after series, David Goldblatt seeks to understand the complex values that constitute the fabric of his country. He observes the social and political evolution of South-African society; from the universe of the Afrikaners, the black South Africans, to deep level gold mining. His photos from the “TJ” series depict Johannesburg in black and white from the 1950’s and more recently in color. These images witness the torments of this city during Apartheid and since the end of the segregationist regime.
"Johannesburg is a fragmented city. It is not a place of smoothly integrated parts. And it has a name that does not roll easily off the tongue. Unsurprisingly, the people of its fragments, which are severely divided by class, culture and, in particular, by race, have their own names, nicknames, elisions, diminutives and linguistic transliterations for the place. Some of these names are carried into this book. The ‘main name’ is TJ, but you are unlikely to hear it on the street or to see it in any listing. It comes from our old motorcar-licensing system.”
David Goldblatt was born in 1930 in Randfontain, South Africa. In 2009 he received the HCB prize for his TJ project and ongoing work on the city of Johannesburg. Henri Cartier Bresson Foundation is currently showing his exhibition entitled TJ, until 17 April 2011.
A comprehensive retrospective of his work, which opened in the AXA Gallery in New York in 2001 offered an overview of Goldblatt’s photographic work from 1948–1999, it traveled to Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Witte de With – Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam in 2002, Centro Cultural de Belem, Lisbon, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, to Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and to Lenbachhaus Munich in 2003). In 2005, works from the « Intersections » series were shown at the Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, in Camera Austria, Graz, at Fotomuseum, Winterthur and at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam in 2007. David Goldblatt has received the Hasselblad prize in 2006 as well «Les Rencontres d’Arles » prize for his book pour Particulars. In 2007, his work was shown at Documenta 12, Kassel. More recently between 2008 and 2011 the exhibition « Intersections Intersected: The Photography of David Goldblatt » was presented at the Museu Serralves, Museum de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, (Portugal) and after at Malmö Konsthall, (Sweden) the New Museum, New York, (USA) and it will be shown at the University Museum of Contemporary Art, Amherst, (USA). In addition the exhibition « South African Photographs: David Goldblatt » was shown at the Jewish Museum, New York in 2010 and is currently exhibited in the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town.
The catalogue TJ published by Contrasto gathers 270 photos from 1948 to 2010, gives an overview of the prolific career of David Goldblatt. 316 pages.
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1 lntroduction to David Goldblatt « TJ », Contrasto, 2010.
Works
