Engaging with South Africa, Part Two: David Goldblatt Last week, Arthub launched a series of in-depth interviews with South Africa based artists as a post Cape Town Art Fair analysis. The exchanges were instigated by Arthub’s Director and Founder, Davide Quadrio, following his moderation of the panel discussion Cross Cultural Encounters, Post Colonialism and Appropriation in the Age of Artistic Mobility, at the fair this past February. Arthub’s Head of Production and Assistant Curator Ryan Nuckolls had a chance to speak with South African photographer David Goldblatt about the many ways in which apartheid has impacted his work. David (b. 1930) has been taking photographs since the 1950s. At that time, he was shooting the unfolding political campaigns mounted by the Congress Alliance, but it wasn’t until 1964 that David received his first career break, when Sally Angwin, the editor of the avant-garde magazine South African Tatler, started passing assignments his way. As a self-appointed forensic witness, apartheid was often the central subject in David’s work, but his true fixation was with photographing and understanding the values of South Africa and the individuals within it. Read on to learn more about photographer David Goldblatt’s artistic motivations for past projects (dating back to the beginning of his career), as well as his plans for future series. Ryan Nuckolls (RN): It seems that labels are very powerful in South Africa. For example, you are a White English-speaking Jewish South African. These are labels by which many would define you. You have referred to yourself as un-appointed unlicensed critical observer. I would like to ask you about one more label—how do you feel about the term artist? David Goldblatt (DG): I must say, I find the word artist to be a rather presumptuous kind of title. To me, art is a grey area. I understand we need shorthand ways of comprehending certain subjects, so sometimes it's a good idea to use a term like the arts or artists—regardless of whether I’m comfortable with it. Here, I will follow the Oxford dictionary, which defines art as either a craft or an attempt at a transcendental statement. I wouldn’t presume to make such a statement, but I do believe that I am a good craftsman, or at least I hope so anyway. Whether or not my work can be regarded as art is not terribly important to me. If people choose to regard me as an artist, then it’s up to them. Admittedly, I make my living nowadays by the sale of prints. This is to me, a very interesting, but strange place to be in, because I think the international art market is a bit of a bubble. The world has taken to photography in quite a big way and regards it as art (whatever that may be). I am a part of that – I don’t feel altogether comfortable with it – but I am very happy that I’m being paid ridiculous amounts of money for prints. I would never buy my prints for those prices. At the moment, we are in throes of a situation in South Africa—recently, students have being trashing art, they’ve burnt paintings and photographs. This is a disturbing matter; I believe these students are just one step away from matches. First, they burn art and then they burn people. In 1986, at a large outdoor rally in Soweto, Winnie Mandela is recorded declaring, “We have our matchboxes. We have our bottles… with necklaces, we will liberate the country”. Here she was referring to the nation’s ability to violently protest and attack their opposition (necklacing is the execution and torture of individuals by forcing motor car tires, filled with petrol, around their chest and arms, and setting it alight). The actions of these artists – if I can use that term now – is a very serious matter (not just idle talk). I think the artists of this country have been remiss in not standing up and talking or rather shouting about what has happened to them and to their fellow countrymen. I understand the need for direct action in order to bring about change, but South Africa has a democracy—as was proven yesterday by a very significant judgment in our constitutional court. i I believe the essence of democracy is discussion. When we have differences within a democratic society, we are able to settle our differences by talking. Parliaments, media platforms, freedom of expression, these are all important aspects of a democratic state. When I’m threatened, which is how I feel after the burning of somebody else’s work, I take that as an infringement on my right to express myself. When you’re attempting to achieve your ends by throwing human shit or using matches – acts that inevitably lead to fists and guns – these are methods of direct action that seriously infringe upon democracy. RN: Following the 1948 National Party election you considered leaving South Africa, fearful of raising your kids in a highly racist society. I understand that in the following years you realized that leaving would have meant becoming an alien forever; whether you decided to immigrate to Israel or Europe you would never have been as familiar with the people and the land in the same way you are connected with South Africa. In past moments of self-censorship and fear, have you ever regretted your decision not to leave? DG: I’m delighted that I stayed in South Africa and I would hate to be forced to leave now. I think the only circumstance in which I would contemplate leaving, even at this ripe age, is if we were seriously overcome by intolerable violence. And we certainly haven’t reached that stage yet. The violence being exercised now is a threat to our freedom of expression, but hasn't yet become a threat to our existence. However, it has to be said again, we are currently in a situation in which people who are regarded as foreign, particularly in the townships, are being targeted. Their businesses have been raided, looted and destroyed. This is the antithesis of freedom, free market values and democracy. South Africa is governed by the rule of law, which simply means that there are guidelines by which the society has agreed to govern itself. And when you seriously impede on those laws and threaten the validity of the state’s infrastructure, then you’re in a very vulnerable place. RN: I know you do not consider yourself a political activist, but throughout your career you have been involved in politics, either as a critic of exploitative labor practices or by capturing the structural inequalities that exist in both literal and metaphorical manifestations. In 2006, you received the Hasselblad Foundation Award for photography, the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award in 2009; you’ve exhibited at institutions and galleries around the world. Do you think your work has helped shape the way non- South Africans understand and relate to what happened during Apartheid? DG: I find it very difficult to make any kind of assessment about the impact of my work on the world. Who knows whether it has had any influence on the actions of others—what they may or may not have done otherwise. It's a topic that I’ve never really explored. Every now and again, I’m warmed by people saying how much they respect the work I’ve done. I’m very glad for these sentiments, honored really, but honestly, I don’t think that my work is the kind that influences people. I’m a bit like coffee in a percolator; just as the continuously dripping coffee causes small ripples, I will continue to make photographs, which may or may not affect somebody’s mental horizons. The way they think about the world or about South Africa may be impacted, but it’s hard for me to see that my work has any direct influence. That doesn't mean that I don't pursue these loftier goals and that I don’t believe that the work I started fifty years ago isn’t necessary. I have to do what I do. It’s my way of standing up and being counted, and I hope I go on doing it until the day I die. RN: At the beginning of your career, you said that part of your motivation for becoming a magazine photographer was driven by an ambition to tell the world what was happening in South Africa, by using this miraculous instrument that allowed you to touch the real world, while simultaneously abstracting it. Publications like Life and Picture Post allowed you to step through a window into a different world and you wanted to help others do the same. Eventually, you realized, maybe the rest of the world wasn’t very interested in what was happening in South Africa—do you still feel this way? Do you have a desire to share the country that you know so well with the rest of the world or do you think in some ways it's a culture that as a non-native is almost incomprehensible from the outside? DG: It sounds really selfish, well it is really selfish, but ultimately I’m engaged in a conversation with myself – it’s nothing more than that. When I say myself, I like to think that this includes my South African compatriots. A long time ago, in 1968, I stopped trying to talk with people outside of South Africa about my work, because I realized that it was very difficult to convey the essence of the photographs that I’m interested in making.