David Goldblatt

Current Review(s)

'Kith, Kin and Khaya'

David Goldblatt at South African Jewish Museum

'David!' I shouted at the slightly stooped man in short pants staring at the new hotel on Orange Street. He squinted, surprise soon yielding to recognition as I came closer. 'It’s weird, isn’t it,' I said, pointing at the rectilinear building lit by colourful lighting opposite. 'Astonishing,' replied David Goldblatt. For a moment we said nothing, both of us staring at something, a building perhaps, but also the lingering residue of what was, a something now only contained in photographs.

In October 1965, a month shy of his thirty-fifth birthday, Goldblatt made the first of three black and white photos of the former Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk on Orange Street; it shows formally attired Afrikaner clergymen seated in rows in the synod hall. Nearly two decades later, on August 16, 1986, Goldblatt returned, producing an exterior view of the synod hall. It is winter in this photo, the trees lining the pavement bare. The third photograph summarises the historical arc of his photography generally, as well as his serial occupation with buildings and habit of returning to the sites of old photographs. Made on April 25, 2007, this photograph shows a giant metal claw picking at the collapsed body of the demolished synod hall. The World Cup was coming; Cape Town needed visitor beds, not bankrupt memorials to a recent past.

01 November 2010 - 11 February 2011

Listings(s)

'There is always a cup of sea to sail in': The 29th Sao Paulo Biennial

David Goldblatt, Kendell Geers and Moshekwa Langa at Bienal de Sao Paulo

The 29th Bienal de São Paulo is anchored in the notion that it is impossible to separate art from politics. Such impossibility is expressed in the fact that art is capable of blocking the sensorial coordinates through which we understand and inhabit the world by bringing into it themes and attitudes that did not previously fit in. The title chosen for the 29th Bienal de São Paulo, 'There is always a cup of sea to sail in' - a quotation borrowed from the Brazilian poet Jorge de Lima’s major work Invenção de Orfeu (1952) – epitomizes what the Bienal seeks to achieve: to assert that the utopian dimension of art is contained within itself, not without it or beyond it. It is in the 'cup of sea' – the near infinite where artists produce their work – that the power lies to move forward.

The exhibition is organised according to six issues relating to political thought and action through art. Unfolding within a poetic and integrated curatorial space, these six 'terrains' are as follows: 'The skin of the invisible'; 'Said, unsaid, forbidden'; 'I am the street'; 'Remembrance and oblivion'; 'Far away, right here'; and 'The other, the same'.

25 September 2010 - 12 December 2010

'TJ: Some things old, some things new and some much the same'

David Goldblatt at Goodman Gallery

This retrospective-style exhibition presents a range of works by David Goldblatt, spanning his photographic career from the 1960s to the present. With this wide ambit, the show presents a clear picture of Goldblatt's socio-political vision and offers a strong critique of South Africa's post-apartheid administrations.

Goldblatt will give a walkabout of the show on October 9 at 10am.

07 October 2010 - 06 November 2010

Editions for ArtThrob Print Exhibition

Guy Tillim, Jane Alexander, Lisa Brice, Peet Pienaar, David Goldblatt, Penny Siopis, Hentie van der Merwe, Robert Hodgins, Tracey Rose, Mikhael Subotzky, William Kentridge, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Nontsikelelo Veleko at South African Print Gallery

Editions for ArtThrob is pleased to announce an exhibition of all artist prints in our collection at the South African Print Gallery in Woodstock, Cape Town. You are cordially invited to attend the opening finger lunch at 11:30am on Saturday the 29th of August, where all available prints will be for sale.

Editions for ArtThrob, in collaboration with South Africa’s leading artists, has developed a series of specially-commissioned prints; these are sold to cover the running costs of the ArtThrob website. ArtThrob is South Africa’s leading website on contemporary art, and is an important point of reference worldwide for curators, dealers and those interested in South African art.

Artists who have participated in the in the print program include William Kentridge, Penny Siopis, Robert Hodgins, Jane Alexander, Willem Boshoff, Nontsikelelo ‘Lolo’ Veleko, David Goldblatt, Guy Tillim, Lisa Brice, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Mikhael Subotzky, Peet Pienaar, Hentie van der Merwe and Tracey Rose.

In addition, we will be launching a brand new print by Robert Hodgins. Hot off the presses at Mark Attwood’s studio, the image will be available for preview the at exhibition opening. 

Please contact Natasha Norman from ArtThrob for online orders or Gabriel Clark-Brown at the SA Print Gallery for more information.

29 August 2009 - 28 September 2009

'Darkroom: Photography and New Media in South Africa since 1950'

Sue Williamson, David Goldblatt, Roger Ballen, Santu Mofokeng, Jurgen Schadeberg, Tracey Rose, William Kentridge, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Nontsikelelo Veleko at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

An exhibition that considers photography’s role in South Africa’s composite transformation, Darkroom: Photography and New Media in South Africa since 1950 includes 18 artists who span four generations, including Jürgen Schadeberg, Santu Mofokeng, Andrew Tshabangu, David Goldblatt, Sue Williamson, Thando Mama, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Nontsikelelo Veleko and William Kentridge.

The exhibition's eight sections highlight the ways that these artists have addressed South African culture from various perspectives, and their increased presence in the global art world since 1994. 'The social and political transformation of South Africa is one of the most remarkable stories of the second half of the twentieth century,' says Alex Nyerges, director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. 'To engage with it directly through the eyes of those who experienced and documented the anguish, turmoil and elation of the period is both uplifting and thought-provoking.'

21 August 2010 - 24 October 2010

'Kith, Kin and Khaya'

David Goldblatt at South African Jewish Museum

Recently on show at the Jewish Museum in New York, 'Kith, Kin and Khaya' is a showcase of David Goldblatt's black and white silver gelatin prints from 1948 through to 2009. In this extraordinary body of work spanning six decades, Goldblatt provides profound insight into the heart and soul of South Africa's people, politics and places with a consistently critical eye and careful attention to detail.

01 November 2010 - 11 February 2011

'Breaking News: Contemporary Photography from the Middle East and Africa'

Bob Gosani , Guy Tillim, David Goldblatt, Jodie Bieber, Daniel Naude, Pieter Hugo and Mikhael Subotzky at Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena

'Breaking News' presents the third group of acquisitions for the international contemporary photography, art film and video collection of Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena. Curated by Filippo Maggia, this major survey features 21 artists from 12 countries. 'As the title suggests,' says Maggia, 'the idea for this exhibition is to use a selection of emblematic works that recently became part of the Fondazione di Modena collection to shed light on a part of the world that only makes the news with conflicts and bloody events. "Breaking News" is the journalism launch - typical of TV news - that announces the latest news'. Dominated for more than a century by the views induced by colonialism, Africa now expresses a variety of creative voices investigating not only the legacies of the past but also the complexities of the present.

28 November 2010 - 13 March 2011

'TJ, 1948-2010'

David Goldblatt at Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson

After being awarded the prestigious Henri Cartier-Bresson Award for his project 'TJ' in 2009, David Goldblatt's exhibition will now be showcased at the Foundation in Paris.  Bringing together old and new photographs of Johannesburg, the exhibition's title refers to an obsolete acronym stemming from the South African pre-computerised system of motorcar registrations which stood for 'Transvaal, Johannesburg'. These letters, Goldblatt explains, 'implied a certain loyalty'. The exhibition ultimately elucidates on the particular aspects of the sprawling city of Johannesburg, which both infuriate and astound the photographer.

12 January 2011 - 17 April 2011

'Alias' - Photomonth Krakow 2011

Ivan Vladislavic, Lisa Brice, Sean O Toole, David Goldblatt and William Kentridge at Various venues around Krakow

Photomonth is one of Poland's largest visual arts events and one of the leading European festivals of photography, comprising over fifty exhibitions and accompanying events. For the 2011 edition,  curatorial team Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, who exhibited a photographic project at the event last year, have invited artists and writers to collaborate in pairs to create a fictive third persona.

Broomberg and Chanarin explain:

'Twenty-three writers (of fiction, fact and medical history) were each commissioned to create a text describing an invented persona, which was then assigned to a visual artist to inhabit. The work that accompanies these texts is the result of each individual artist’s residency in their fictitious character. It’s an experiment that was set up to fail, because it shouldn’t be that easy to stop being yourself; to break with your own particular political and ethical concerns. Yet most of the artists we approached bravely took up the challenge...'

13 May 2011 - 12 June 2011

'Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity'

Jo Ractliffe, Guy Tillim, Kay Hassan, Berni Searle, David Goldblatt, Santu Mofokeng, Hentie van der Merwe, Pieter Hugo, Zanele Muholi, Candice Breitz, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Nontsikelelo Veleko at The Walther Collection

The Walther Collection opens to the public on June 17, 2010 with 'Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity', introducing works from its African collection. Under the curatorial direction of Okwui Enwezor, the exhibition comprises a series of four projects filling all nine galleries in the three buildings of the new exhibition space in Burlafingen near Ulm, Southern Germany. The exhibition integrates the work of three generations of African artists and photographers with that of modern and contemporary German photography. This combination of African and German works will serve as a model for the kind of curatorial process that animates the character of the collecting program.

Works in the collection include those by Berni Searle, Candice Brietz, Nontsikelelo Veleko, Zanele Muholi, Hentie van der Merwe, David Goldblatt, Kay Hassan, Pieter Hugo, Guy Tillim, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Santu Mofokeng and Jo Ractliffe.

17 June 2010 - 17 October 2010

'Appropriated Landscapes'

Jo Ractliffe, Guy Tillim, Jane Alexander, David Goldblatt, Penny Siopis, Santu Mofokeng, Angela Ferreira, Sabelo Mlangeni, Zanele Muholi and Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse at The Walther Collection

'Appropriated Landscapes' explores landscape typologies in South Africa, Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique, and presents works by fourteen artists, including Jane Alexander, Ângela Ferreira, David Goldblatt, Sabelo Mlangeni, Santu Mofokeng, Zanele Muholi, Jo Ractliffe, Penny Siopis, Mikhael Subotzky/Patrick Waterhouse and Guy Tillim.

Many of the artists presented in 'Appropriated Landscapes' have created images through topographical studies, explorations of nomadic peripheries and in-between spaces, or chronicles of social geography altered by divisive spatial planning and modern architecture. The concept of landscape here is not linked to historical notions of the picturesque and the sublime. Instead, the exhibition considers landscape as a prism of experience, a reflection of ideology, and a stage for the performance and perception of identity. Whether sweeping views, architectural compositions, or portraits, the varied works in the exhibition remind us of the density and richness of the notion of landscape, the complexity and subjectivity of its depiction - and ultimately, of our own spiritual, emotional, personal, and political relationship to it.

16 June 2011 - 13 May 2012

'For a Sustainable World': Recontres de Bamako 2011

Jo Ractliffe, Lien Botha, Brent Meistre, David Goldblatt, Hasan and Husain Essop, Daniel Naude, Pieter Hugo, Sabelo Mlangeni and Tracey Rose at Bamako Photography Biennial

In 2010, many African countries celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their independence. For many, this event was the time to take stock of national achievements and to look critically at political and social structures, as well as the distribution of wealth. For these 'Rencontres', we invited photographers and videographers to witness, to denounce, but also to identify areas for action, evidence of resistance or prevention, and the possibilities for the construction of a sustainable world. The variety of themes and languages ??chosen by the artists provides a survey of the diverse artistic production today on the continent and in the diaspora.

The Pan-African Exhibit, in the temporary exhibition rooms of the National Museum of Mali, brings together 45 photographers and 10 videographers from 27 countries, including a number from South Africa. Other South African artists, including Tracey Rose, appear in 'A World Beyond the World': The Sindika Dokolo Collection, and there is also a 'Monograph' exhibition of David Goldblatt's work.

01 November 2011 - 01 January 2012

'Revolution vs Revolution'

David Goldblatt, Steven Cohen and William Kentridge at Beirut Art Centre

Since 2010, countries from the Arab world have been going through a period of rapid and radical change. Events from the Atlantic to the Arabian Gulf promise new previously unforeseeable trajectories. A new narrative is unfolding.??

It is in this context and in the light of these historical events that Beirut Art Center presents an exhibition and series of events exploring other junctures from the last fifty years that have led to radical changes, such as revolutions, the rise and fall of regimes and ideologies, as well as social and political movements whose effects were felt around the world and to this day. This includes important movements like the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and fall of Communism in Europe, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the end of Apartheid, the student riots in the 60s, as well as Nasserism and the rise of Arab Nationalism.

03 February 2012 - 30 March 2012

Paris Photo

Jodi Bieber, Joel Andrianomearisoa, Billy Monk, David Goldblatt, Santu Mofokeng, Andrew Tshabangu, Cedric Nunn, Pieter Hugo, Mikhael Subotzky, Viviane Sassen, Moshekwa Langa, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Nontsikelelo Veleko at Grand Palais

The annual Paris Photo will celebrate its 15th anniversary at the Grand Palais, featuring 117 galleries from some 23 countries presenting the best of 19th century, modern and contemporary photography in the heart of the French capital. This year's special focus is on African photography from Bamako to Cape Town, with several South African artists in the spotlight in the main venue as well as on other shows around the city (such as the skyroof of the Gare du Nord station). South African galleries  STEVENSON, Goodman Gallery, Bailey Seippel, and Gallery MOMO will be exhibiting.

10 November 2011 - 13 November 2011

Venice Biennale

Mary Sibande, David Goldblatt, Andrew Putter, Siemon Allen, Kendell Geers and Nicholas Hlobo at Various venues around Venice

The South African contingent is strong at this year's Venice Biennale, not only in the much-discussed South African Pavilion, but also in the main curated show and several collateral exhibitions:

David Goldblatt and Nicholas Hlobo in 'ILLUMInations'
Bice Curiger (curator): 'La Biennale is one of the world’s most important forums for the dissemination and "illumination" about the current developments in international art. The title of the 54th Exhibition, "ILLUMInations" literally draws attention to the importance of such developments in a globalised world. I am particularly interested in the eagerness of many contemporary artists to establish an intense dialogue with the viewer, and to challenge the conventions through which contemporary art is viewed'.
Venue: Arsenale and Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Giardini

Mary Sibande, Siemon Allen and Lyndi Sales in 'Desire: Ideal Narratives in Contemporary South African Art' (South African Pavilion)
Curated by Thembinkosi Goniwe, this exhibition features South African artists whose work explores a range of realities, memories and fantasies. The artists produce imaginary truths or rather ideal narratives that reflect on South Africa, a country that is simultaneously adored and detested.
Venue: Torre di Porta Nuova, Arsenale Nuovissimo

Andrew Putter in 'Personal Structures'
The exhibition brings together an extraordinary combination of established artists next to artists whose oeuvre is less known. What they have in common is a dedication to the concepts of Time, Space and Existence.
Venue: Palazzo Bembo (by Rialto Bridge, Grand Canal)

Kendell Geers in 'Glasstress 2011'
This exhibition, devoted entirely to glass, features international artists, designers and architects, and includes indoor and outdoor. Brutality and beauty characterize Kendell Geers' object arrangements and material camouflages. Violence, risk, danger, and perpetration carve themselves into the work through poetic language and the unambiguous shaping of the material. Kendell Geers actively pushes the borders and isn't afraid to address banality, kitsch, or sexism. The shift in context and intensification of Geers' work is a result of both the site (Venice) and his focus on working with a specific material.

04 June 2011 - 27 November 2011

'Portraits'

David Goldblatt at Goodman Gallery Cape

"The great photographer and portraitist Bill Brandt said, simply: I think a good portrait ought to tell something of the subject’s past and suggest something of his future.? And Evelyn Hofer, who has been called ‘the most famous ‘unknown’ photographer in America’ said: In reality, all we photographers photograph is ourselves in the other… all the time.? These two statements, an ideal and an understanding, offer something approaching a ‘philosophy’ of portraiture to which I subscribe." ?- David Goldblatt

In a solo exhibition at Goodman Gallery Cape, titled simply Portraits, photographer David Goldblatt brings together old and new portraits of South Africans taken over the course of his 50-year career. The exhibition includes several commissioned portraits of well-known South African figures never shown before, and a curated selection of photographs spanning the 1960s ‘70s and ‘80s.

Also on show is the series Ex-Offenders, recently shown at the 54th Venice Biennale, in which Goldblatt invites convicted and alleged criminals to revisit the scene of the crime of which they’ve been accused, and to be photographed there. “I wanted to burrow under the statistics,” says Goldblatt, “to meet some of the doers of crime, do portraits of them, and hear from them about their lives and what they had done.” Most of his subjects in the series were trying to go straight under very difficult circumstances, which is why Goldblatt refers to them not as criminals or offenders, but as ex-offenders.

29 October 2011 - 10 December 2011

'David Goldblatt. Lifetimes: Under Apartheid'

David Goldblatt at Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A)

Photographer David Goldblatt has explored the social landscape of South Africa since the late 1940s. In 1987, he generously donated a large collection of his work to the V&A. The display will present a selection of these images, focussing on the later years under apartheid rule. The display complements the exhibition 'Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography' in the Porter Gallery.

08 April 2011 - 31 July 2011