fifty-one years: David Goldblatt

by David Goldblatt, Nadine Gordimer, Michael Godby

David Goldblatt stands as South Africa's most respected and important documentary photographer. His work in his native country has consistently been uncompromising in its critical exploration of South African society, through the aparthied years during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, and into the more recent post-aparthied period. His body of photographs of the architecture of South Africa make an eloquent statement about the inequalities of life there: a beautiful villa on the sea juxtaposed with a black mother and child sleeping where their now destroyed house once stood; the beautifully detailed, whitewashed stairway of a winery and a man building a tiny house for himself out of cinder-block. This monograph, published on the occasion of a major retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, brings together work from throughout his career, including recent, never-before-published material. Its images of architecture, people, and landscape speak to the social injustice of his world, but also maintain a delicate balance with aesthetic achievement. It also includes essays by prominent South African writers Nadine Gordiner and J.M. Coetzee, and by Okwui Enwezor, curator of the upcoming Documenta XII exhibition.

456 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2001

About the author

David Goldblatt was a South African photographer noted for his portrayal of South Africa during the period of apartheid and the country's landscapes.

Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Jonathan Walker]

One of the greatest documentary photographers of the latter half of the twentieth century, and a great overview of his work on apartheid-era South Africa, with lots of critical essays too.