Michael Qodby Professorof Historyof Art,University of Capetown

michael qodby Professorof Historyof Art,University of CapeTown

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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 the carnera,and how their appearance produced by dre earlier inquiry And it is this recognirion - and gysl - rheir very facial type would be used asevidence of power in the subject which makes nonsenseof the idea in determining rheir fate. The power relationship betvreen that Struggleirhotography is a version of the Modernisr the sgssnd - commission and it's subjects parriculariy project that inevitably objecrifiesits sulrject.Whereas many photographer - and subject was almost entirely reversed. of the new portrait imageswork in parr by representjngthe The trvsnly photographers whose work was published engagementof the subject with the photc grapheron the basis by the ihquiry were clearly chosen both for the str-ength of equality,many of rhe docurnentaryimages gain power to of their individual sryles and.their interest in having their the extent that the photographers refuse reference[o their subjec6 speak for themselves. In a way the transfer of presenceat [l're'scene.Parricipants in political gatherings, authotty in the second inquiry from the commissronersto protest meetings, funerai processions,and other Struggle their suligsls is represenredin the decision to publish the eventscontinued their acrivitiesregardless ofthe presenceof l ; ]0 l i n I the photographer.Paradoxically, this very absenceofconract for photographic style would detract iiom a sense of provided a senseof cr:ntinuity between spectatorspace and commitment to the subject. But Badshaand others clearly pi.ctorial space,an impression that was often reinforced by worked hard to develop a formal languageto communicare the apparentexlension of activity in the photograph beyond the precise sense of humanity they recog'nisedin their the picture format. The quality of actuaiiry that is achieved subjects;and they clearlysearched for sq'listic fcrms ro create in theseways conmunicates a senseof autonomousvitaiity powerful, meaningful images.In this search,the experience in the subject that has unmistakable poiitlcal significance. of producing both The CordonedHeart and. Beyond the Barncadesnot only as exhibitions but aiso as weil-printed, During tlre fi.nalState of Emergencyin the I9B0s, in an effort durable publications no doubt encouraged even greater to cut off intemationai suppoil for the Srruggle,rhe South concern for the language of visual communication. Most African government effectively outlawed. photography of of these pl-rotographerswouid have been used to having 'any unrest or security action'. In 1989 Afrapix, the collecdve their work reproduced in newsprint u'ithin 24 hor.rrsof the of Struggle photographers, wirh other organisadons, story they were documenring by editors r,vho would not sought to circurnvent this restriction on members'work by hesitateto crop the image to make it fit in the page la1r6111; organi.singthe major travelling exhibition and book enritled the experienceof seeingrhe samework published on high- Beyondthe Bantcades:Popular Resistancein South AJica in quality paper, independent of the political narrarive, a year tlrc 1980s,Photogrciphs by TwentySouth LfncanPlntographers. or more after the event must have been eye-opening. To In the absenceof coverageof current events, the prqect contemplatephotographs at such a remove is to demand a reprinted ma.lor f,hotographs of the decadeto remind the definitevisual authoriry in rhe irnage. intemational community that rhe Struggle was indeed continuing. Significantiy,rhe srraregyof rhis pro;ecr was ro In recentyears, all the photographersin this coilection have downplay the idenrity of the photographers- they are nor had their work shcwn in art gallerles, whether as major listed until the very end of the book - seeminglyin order retrospectivesin South Africa or overseas,or in themed to give grearer prominence to the everitsdepicted. But the exhibitions or group shows. Similarly, rhey have all had Spparent anonlmrity of rhe photographers seri'es nor so their work published in book for:m, wherher monographs much to identify them ra'irh rhe authority of the project, or coilectlons.and severalof them have been published as in tl-refirst Carnegieinquiry bur rather to emphasisethe many times over. These ouiiets are obviotr.sly the same agency of their subjects. There are photographs of police as those for academic photographers, and they certainly repression,of pain and of grief, but the collection as a whole encouragecrirical engagemehtwith aestheticissues. Thus was sulely designedto give expressionto the extraordinary Santu Mofokeng inten:ened recentiy in the hangrng of his ntalit,r'of the SouthAfircan Srruggle. refiospeciive exhibition Inyoice to i"ntroduce a distinctly pessimisticreading of polirical deveiopmenrsin SouthAfrica, Struggle photographers ofren have an uneasy relationship and Mendel, har.ing deveiopeda styie of arrestingbeauqr iir with the aesthericquality of their work. Thus Omar Badsha, his documentary rn'ork, chose to both vioiate the aesthetic one of the most pictorial photographersof his'generation, space of the National Gallery for his BrohenLandscape r:outinely gives contradictory accounts of the irnponance exhibition and aesrheticize the political space of street he attached ro pictorial issuessuch as eomposition ln his protests,lo promote the causeof HIV/AIDS activism.But work: for a dme it seemedthat any expressionof concern rhe overriding point of rhis j.mmersionof socially motlvared

r1 documentary photographers in the aesthedc discourse of breaks down. GeorgeHallett, cn the other hand, continues the art world is that they are using the contemplativespace to celebrate the sense of community in Cape Towni of the gallery to develop a more subtle and intricate visual poorer suburbs; in District Six, before its demolitron in the language. apailheid era; and, most lyrically, in the Bo-Kaap, which appearsto maintain traditional spiritual values in the midst The photographers in this collection have been selected of CapeTown's materialism. for this project because,having been active in the Struggie period, they all still work with a commitment to political - or, HIV/AIDS, land redistribution, and the transformation of rather,social - developmentsin SouthAfrica or elsewhereon the urban landscape- with the attendant erosion of social the continent. Thus Eric Miller and Guy Tillim have moved structures, crime, and environmental degradation - are from the South African Struggleto cover the mind-boggling obviously the major social issuesfacing South Africa today phenomenon of child soldiers elsewherein Africa adopting But rhey do not mobilise the country - indeed. the country bizane iterns of dressin effors to make some senseof their rs deeply divided over them - and they do not maintain iives. GisEleWulfsohn documents the HIV/AIDS pandemic, a high visual profile in the media. There is no established not as the catastrophe that it self-evidently is in statistical iconography, because the issues are too complar, and terms, but as the experience of indi','iduals and families responsibilitytoo diffuse.Photographers can neither propose choosing to live positively Sigmficantll',Goldblau also takes solutions nor identify culprits: they can simply documenr a tangentialview pf the pandemic in a seriesof photographs the experienceof those affected.Tirus photographers who of AIDS signagethat both suggeststhe inadequacyof official earlier might have combined their statements of humiln responseto the catastrophe,and literally inscribesit into the interest with some kind of"declamatoryintent - drav'ing on land.scape.Weinberg maintains his comraitment. to social generaiiyaccepted notions of right and wrc'ng, and pointing issuesin ongoing essayson the pre.sentcomplex condition to self-evident political solutions - must now abandon of the Bushmen and in his explorations of the story of land rhetoric and simply addressti're specifics of each occasion. redistribution, surely one of the most potentially explosive Current work by thesephotographers, therefore, is likely r.o of political issues. Other photographers in this collection be both more intimate than their earlier work and r,'isually and, of course, elsewhere addressthe theme of the urban more exciting. it is intimate because it enrers the lived landscape.ln this issue, as in the others, there is no readily experienceof specificindividuals; and it is exciting because, identifiabie good guy or bad guy, in Goldblatt's terms, but in avoiding the well-worn formulae of public rhetoric, ir can the transformation of SouthAfrica'scities is an obvious cause explore the slmtax of visual expression with sensitivity and for concern. Goidblatt himself documents different aspecrs new creativity of today's cities - notably thc degradation of the inner city, the startling juxtapositions of extreme wealth and extreme The ambition to document the lived expenence of one's poverty, and the ostentatiousr,r:lgarity of the suburbs. And subjects is to engage with an empathy tlr.at obviously other photographers colcentrate on panicular aspects of involves the personality and memory of the photographers the urban exper"ience;Graeme Williams picks up on rhe themselves.Already in the Struggle period some of the bizarre arid the incipient violence of inner-city life; and photographers selected for this project - and, of course, Tillirn graphically documents the implosion of vast arbasof others - felt the need ro withclraw from the fronti.ine, as Johannesburg's flatland as the landiord-tenant relati.rnship it were, and explore sornething of their own identity and

i rz I I I history There is a marked autobiographical quality in Spirit. On one level, this work is concerned to docurnent. much of Goldblatts earlier work. But photographers such certain rituals and ceremonjes.But photographers are also as Weinberg and Williams used the perspective rhey had concerned to develop formal mean.sto convey a sense of gained in the Struggle to explore their familiar world rvith the spiritual. Thus, like Mthethwa, who rejects black and new eyes, Similarly, as soon as the racial categories of white entirely in favour of rn'hathe considersto be the rnore apartheid had been scrapped and the reality of a universal resonant medium of colour, Miller uses colour to evoke citizenship finally established,some photographersturned both the poetic and the bizarre in human experience,and to the taboo subjects of racial identity and origins. Thus \,{ofokeng, Weinberg, and others explore the expressive Cedr:icNunn explored the experienceof so-calledcoloured potential oftone - from radiant brightnessto shadowygloom people, cut off from both their black and white parentage, - to suggdstthe proximity of the spiritual world. Hallett and seemingly still searching for a cultural identity: his certainly reiates to this trend, but with the important proviso essay E'loodRelatives seeks .paradoxically both to cement that he has consistently rejected the genre of documentary his identity within his extended family and to lament the becauseof what he seesas its negative characterisadonof survivai of racial categoriesin post-apartheid South Africa. its subjectsin favour of the more positive assertionsof the And Badsha,who has long been commirted to the idea of human spirit, such as music and dance. Thus, in diffcrent non-racialism.,took the opponuniry provided by the rerum ways, most of the photographersin this collection draw on of the passport that had been confiscatedby the previous a sophisticated formal vocabulary in their recent u'ork to dispensation to travel widely in india in search of his evoke a senseof resonance,if not actuai spiritual depth, in ancestralroots. their subjects.

At different times either side of 1990, certain black In terms of subject matter, therefore, one may discern photographers, including Santu Mofokeng and Zwelethu both change and continuity in the work of Sor.rthAfrican Mthethwa, protested against what they perceived as the documentary photographerseither side of 1990 or, as thrs reductirrequality of politically morivated photography and ccrllectionhas it, Thenand N ow. The achievementof p olitical exilressedthe needto represent.a fuller senseof the humanity Iiberation, to which all of these photoglaphers directed of their subjects.These remarks should be seenin contexr, their energies for so long, has introduced an'equivalent becauseit is clear that manl' Struggle photographerswere freeciominto their work - with the lack of structure that deeply concemed with precisely this sensein their work. all freedoms entail. Liberated from the srandard events But, in tire same way that politics tended to overshadovi' of political photography, such as protest meetings ancl aesthetic concerns in the Struggle period, they also funerals, they have been forced to find new subject matter tended to preclude any sense of the spiritual dimension that by definition has no estairlGhed iconography But in their subjects. Thus it is not surprising that it is black the same drive for a better society that fuelled the earlier photographers like Mofokeng and Mthethwa, rogerher political work is apparent in many of the assays- on HIV/ rn'ith Andrew Tshabangu, who have cxpressed the strongest AIDS, Iand redistribution, and other subjects - today And interest in this aspectof South African life since liberarion. the sarneneed in Struggletimes to present their subjectsas In this collection it is Weinberg who lepresents rhis rounded human beings rather than victims or ciphers still important trend wirh selecrionsfrom his maior essayon ihe inspires these photographers to engagewith the hurnanity severalreligious traditions in South,A,frica,enritled Moving of their subjects.During the Struggle,photographers wouid

13 literally place lhernseh'esamongst their subjecrs,even against becauseof the patentlyaesthetic dimension of their work. But the onslaught of the forces of the state. With the advent of all the photographerschosen fcr this projecthave. to a greater democracy, photographers clearl,v seek more empathetic c,r jesserextent, relected tire declamatorymode in favour of ways to identify with their sub.lects,and frequently :'ecognise cornplexitvof subjectand opennessof interpretation.Thus, their own issuesin the Process. if the moment of Thencan be characterisedas a period of discipiined struggietirat focnsedon clea.rlirdefined objecrives, As far as style is concerned, it is not possible simply the rnoment of Now, ivith poiiticai freedom achieved,urould to categorise the changes in the work of docume:ntary seemto rejoicein the fuller humanity that can thrive vurththat photographerseither side of 1990: the field is too complex victory not leastthe creativeexpiession ofthe photographeis and varied. But there are some tendencies that are worth themselves. considedng.For exarnple,certain photographels, iike Tillim an.dMi1ler, are experimenting w1th colour, not to make their work appear more realistic but rather as a vehicle for sotrre form of poetic content. Moreover, in the earlier period, photographers would frequently both avoid the centre of the format, seemingly to a}low for a multiple locus in- the References

picture, and rvork ra,'iththe nrargins, as if to acknowledge Badsha,Omar (ed). 1986. SottthAfica: TltcCordr,ncdHcart. Essn'v.i iry both the provisicnal nature of the image and the fact that )wentv SouthAfican Photographers.Cape Town: Tbe Gallery Piess. Caniegie Commission ,;i lntestrgation ,rn the Poor White in the frame. Thesestrategies Qirestion life obviously continued beyond SouthAfnca. 19.j2. fhc Poor'lihiteProblcnrin-Scntlr A.flica:ReportttJth.e effectively undermined the sense of authority in tlre Carw$e Conmission.Five voluines. Stclleniros,:h: Pro EcclesiiL. 'Corrstructs: photograph - and, of course, in the photographer- in favour Duborv, Nevrlle. 1998. Reflectionson a Thinking E1'e'.In David Goldblau, SotttltA_frica: Tlt Sttttctureof ThingsThcn. Cape Totni: of a greater complexity in tire subject and a mofe active role Cxford Unir,ersitl' Press.22--33. for the viern'er.Today Goldblatt'is extending this tendencyby Enr,,'ezor,Okv,n-ri. 2006. Snapludgtnents: Ncur Positicrnsin Citntcntporon, A,jncc'nFhotograph.y New ibrk: International Cer-rterc'[ Ffrorography-. working with fiiptychs, either to offer three different-riews of Feinberg,Barry i990. inugcs irr StrLrggle:South AJiccm Pilotogiuplurs Sp.ak the samesubject or to composethree different imageson the (r'jdeo). Unii'ersit)' of the ll'esten'r Cape: lvlaf ibul'e Cer:tre. 'After sarrrerheme. Moreover, photoglaphers like Mendeland Tiliirn Godby, lvlictrael.2004. Apartheid: I0 Sorrth Atrican Dc'crimentary Irhotograplrers'.Africa.n,\rt-<, XllX\1I:4. l6-'i1. appear to be seeking a greater detnocracyin the trlangular G;undlirrgh, Kathleen et al. 1997. Photosynthcsis:Contcrnporar^t Soutl'r relationship between the photographer, tire subject and the A'tton Photcgiaph-y. Cape Ttrv'n: South African t.\ational Gallen'. rriewer.Thus Mendel and Tillim, in some recent"works, seem Hil i, lris T and A Harn;. 1989- Btlond thc Ranicad.t s: PoprLlar-Rcsi stancr it even to questionthe legitirnacyof the documetrtaryproJect SouthAJricu in thc 198t)s.Photogrzphs b-), Irvcnh, SouthA{rican Photographcrs. Lcndon: I(liptown Boolis. and have tended to constrltct the photographic encounter 'Post-Apartireid JLrsephy,Svea. 2002. South Africar' Phottlgraphy'. In G 'Ioum: as opportunities for self-represeniation,with the. subjects Grundlingh, Tlrc Cqc 7bu'nMonth aJ Photo!,taph. Cape South ',A.fiican Centle for Photographv 5-17. effectivelyclictatlng how they want to be recorded.\4oreover, Lundstrom. Jan-Erih anci l.larerir:aPicrre 1993. Drrnoclnc-r.,!Inrnges: in their reluctance to frame their subjects in any way, botir Plntograplwand \tisual Art Aftcr Aparllrctd.Ume a: Bildmuseet. photographershave refusedto describetireir subjectsas their \r/:rrrhorc prrrl I oRt)'A'.rr113id - A Vigilanr\Arirness: A Re{lecriolon Pl-rotoglaphy'.In W Campschreur and Divendal (ecis),CultLu'e in Anotltcr commlssion seemsto have required, as AIDS victims on the J -S.rriiir.4frira. Lonclon: Zcd B,:oks.60-7C. and farriine sun,ivors on ihe othei. 'Docum,-nrar-a one hand, for example, \&'einbei:g,Paul. 1i9i. l.hoto$apiri,: p:tst.plesent and Thesestraregies are extreuie,and they can oniy be effective lLltule . )tdlllldar: !r:1. 9)-9 / .