Michael Qodby Professorof Historyof Art,University of Capetown

michael qodby Professorof Historyof Art,University of CapeTown iii\,i n an interview in the ./rdeoInnges in StrugJe(i990), Paul Africa was generalf' more analltical than confrontaiional I I W"irrb.rg described 11 February 1990, the day on which - said a few yearslater, the old distinctions between the bad 'confusion Nelson Manda was releasedfrom prison, as simultaneously grrysand the good guys'had been repiacedby a the best and the worst day of his life. lt tas the best day, of of forces'; photographers - and others - were suddenly 'deprived course, becausethe releaseof Mandela and other political of the central focus of their work'. prisoners, and the unbanning of the ANC and other politicai organisations,were rhe very aims to which he had A measureof the crisis affecti.ngdocumentary photographers dedicated his professionallife as i.photographer for many at that time is that severalpractitioners who had identifred years. And it was the worst day because,having fought as complctelywith the Strrggle simply left the country: notable a'Struggie photographer with a relatively small band of examples are Gideon Mendel and Wendy Schrvegmann. 'Lesley like-minded colleagues,he was stampededby a contingent Others, like Larvson, gave up photography in of intemational photographers and effectively prevented fayour of less confrontationai lvork. Each case, of course, from taking any pictures until the next day in Cape Town. is individual, and doubtless financial and other factors Moreover,as Weinberg has explained in subsequentarticles, applied, but the phenomenon invites comparison to the once the media circus surrounding Manclelasrelease had experienceof certain MK cadreswho, having fought in the left town, it soon became apparent that the international Struggle, left the country or abandoned political activi.ty, pressretained little interest in South African stories.But the ar the moment of liberation. Horvever, if the-tradition of real cridis at this moment of joy lay in rhe realisation that documentary photography in South Africa rvas suddenly the passing of the political conflict had effectiveiy robbed paraiysedby a loss of significant subject matter on rhe one him of his regular subject matrer, and that there seemed hand, and the clcsing of famiiiar media outlets on the other, to be nothing of imporunce left to photograph. fu David th.epolitical changesin the country introduced a whole new Goldblatt - whose own documentation of aoartheid South worlcl of photographic opportunities. Theworld of artistic or academicphotography, '*'hich in a sensehad been eclipsed the transition from the Modem to the Post-Modem era. by the predominance of political work in the eighties,came But w-hile this argument might be sustained in relation to to {lourish in the political freedom of the nineties. And selectedaxamples from both periods, it is demonstrably an if the outside world had lost interest in South Africa as a oversimphficationwhen one considersthe history of South political story the lifting of the cultural boycott in the uew African photography as a u'hole. dispensationallowed international curators and galleriststo discover and promote the extraordinary fir,ge of creativity In the first place, the argument is an oversimplification in the South Afriyn art world, not least in photography. because those cited as represerlting Sor-ith Afiica's entry into the Post-Ivlodernworld - Penny Siopis, _io Ractiiffe, Numerous exhibitions and pubiications have celebratedthe Jean Brundrit and others - representa distinct group from new lvorld of post-apartheid South African photography, thosewho made their namesas Strugglephotographers: the including Photosynrhesis: Contnnporary South Afncan change is one of personnel rather than one that necessariiy Photography(1997), with an essayby Kathleen Grundlingh; affected individual photographers. Put another way, rhe Demo cr aq,'s Intage s : Photogr aplryandVuual Art AJterAp arthcLd change is a change in the spotlight of critical reading (1998), with essa.ysby Jan-Erik Lundstrom, Rory Bester, where rhe one practice that had formerly been eclipsed by Katarina Pierre and otherc; AfterApartheid: 10 SouthAJrican documentary photography is norn'shorvn in the limelight. Doanmentary Photographers,by Michael Godby (exhibition But, in the same way that academic photography uas in 2002, essayin ,{fricanArts in ZO04):and SveaJosephys practiced even in the darkest days of apartheid, so now 'Post-Apartheid essay Scuth African Photography' in The in spite of the buge change in both politicai and cultural CapeTown Month of Photograplrycatalogue of 2002. To these conditions, and in spite also of their initial confusion at shouid be added Okwui Enwezor's SnapJudgnaxts: New the end of the Stmggle project, many former documentary Posifionsin ContemporaryAJficcn Photograp;hy (2006), which photographers continue their commitment to social and devotesconsiderable space to South African photographers. ideologicalconcerns: we shall seethe form that sorneofthese Most of thesewriters discussthe issuesthat appearto concern nerv projects takes in the latter part of this essal'.Secondiy, contemporaryphotographers workingin the aestheticspace relating documentaryStruggie photography too readily with of the art gallery.Thus they identify a tendency to question the Modernist project leadsto the unfortunate icientification the nature of photographic representation;a disavowalof the of this practicewith the conditions of colonialism to which, idea of a unitary truth in favour of multiplicity; a rejection of course, it was fundamentally opposed. Documentary o[ the senseof objectivity in favour of the subjective;and a photography of the Struggle era was certainly unired in its correspon.dinginterest in personai subjects at the expense opposition to apartheid. But it u'as also concerned with of public and political statements.In rhese terms, much of isstres of representation and of power relations between contemporary South African photography is now concerned photographer and subject that pl,aceit wiihin the orbit of u.ith issuesof identity - notably in terms of race, gender and Post-Modem interests. What else is mcant by Weini-rergs 'Recent sexualorientation; issuesof memory - especiallyin relation observation that work has indicated a shift into to the apartheid past; and the conventions and ger]resof more in-depth commtrnity photography and mo.repersonal representation.So differenr do rheseconcerns appear fi'om searchesin the community of the photographer', if not the the urgent political expressionsof the apartheid era ihat ideas of multiplicity' and refle-ojvity in the photogaphic some have been tempted to characterise the changetas project? He made these remarks in 1989, shortly before ,Jr. L. the end of political restrictions, but it would be a mistake collection of photographs as the very lirst l-olume of the to beiieve that the entire Struggle project was not involved report: the photogaphs, ofcourse, representthe subjectsof at sohe'level 'I'o with these critical issr-1s5. state this is, of the inquiry more directly thart could any writer, and.unny collrss, to suggesr that Struggle photography was rarher images clearly arriculate rhe urgent political ciernandsof more 66mplsx rhan is generally supposed. their subjects. Insig[1 into the pailicular nature of Struggle photography, The clear photographic personality of the rweltry notably its adherence to progressive aesthetic con.cems, photograpbersincluded in Tlrc CordonedHcart, in both can be gained'by comparing South AJrica: The Cordoned choice of su,bjectand their lrranner of treafing it, suggests Heart, the major collection of anti-apartheid photographs a certain subjectivity in the project, a provisional quality published in 1986 by the Second Camegie Inquiry into that conirasts strongly wirh the assumed obj'ectitiq, of Poverty an.dDevelopment in Southern Afiica, with the use the photograpirs produced by the first inquiry Moreover, of pirotographs by rhe original Carnegie Commission of while the style of the earlier images tends to confirm the Investigation on the Poor White Quesrion in South Africa senseof power of the commissioners over their subjects. of t92B-1932. ln the reporr of the first inquiry photographs The CordanedHeaft collecrion seems ro have purposely are unssldfuted 'types' 'poor and stereotyped: of whi.tes' used different.aspects of style to communicate a senseof and thgil dwellings are presented face on and centrally,in both humanity and agencyin its subjects.A corlparison the manner of police mug-shots,These strategies suggesl of portrait..like images in the two collections sugges* rhat that t\s photographers,who were probably commissioners individuals in the flrst were presentedvirtually asspecimen.; an)'!vay, identified completely with the investigation as an for rhe inspection o[ the vielver, while those in the second instrumenr of the stare wirh the power ro decide wirich of were given a full humanity by calling on rhe comrentiotls, its indigenr sub.;ectswere worrhy of charity. of pose and lighting, for example,of the Westernpr)rrrart tradition. The [151 commission and its photographers, therefore. qxercised absolute power over its subjects:from the visual However, it is the communication of the senseof agency record i1 is possible ro reconsrrucr the photographic in the subject tlrat really distinguishes The CordonedHeart encounter and imagine the subiectsbeing instructed how to and Strugglephotography generally from rhe photographs present themselvesto

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