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JEWISH AFFAIRS ROSH HASHANAH 2012Queen, which was publishing very strong fashionwork. Town was mostly of men’s interests andthey employed very fine writers, designers andphotographers. So I sent some work across andthen got a letter back from the assistant editorsaying that they would like me to do some workaround the Anglo-American Corporation, onwhich they were going to do a big story. I submittedmy work, which they published. Then theirassistant editor, Sally Angwin, came to SouthAfrica. By that time, I had sold my father’sbusiness in Randfontein. It was in 1963 and I wasnow a full time photographer, with no ties tospeak of. I had two Leicas and a lot of hope.FS: How did you exist?DG: Well, I took enough out of the business tokeep us going for about a year. Anyway, SallyAngwin was a South African and she came outhere to get married. She contacted me and she wasthen commissioned by a man called DesmondNiven (the grandson of Percy Fitzpatrick). Hehad bought the South African Tatler, which wasa real social rag, and he commissioned Sally toturn it into a sort of Queen & Town. He wanted tomake an avant-garde magazine for the SouthAfrican market, and she became its editor. Shewas a very fine magazine editor, veryaccomplished. She recruited me to do a lot ofwork. So that was for me a major breakthrough,because then my work became known. I did someinteresting stuff and she was very receptive. Andso that’s more or less how I started.FS: I recall that a few years ago the SABCTV,“Going to work: 3:30 am, Wolwekraal-Marabastadbus, standing passengers have slumped to the floor,1983” (David Goldblatt Fifty-One Years, Museu d’ArtContemporani de Barcelona, 2001, p283)used or in this case abused, one of yourphotographs to misrepresent an event. Wolf(Weinek) and I got involved in an attempt to getthem to set the record straight. But I think by thenyou had already received the benefit of legalaction against them and got the matter sorted out.DG: Yes, of course, I remember. Whathappened was that Lily and I were out for thenight. When we got home Steven, our eldest son,said that he had seen a piece on the eight o’clocktelevision news where they had used a photographof mine of an ouderling in the N.G. Kerk. It wasa mission church, the coloured church. They’dused a photograph of mine which showed theouderling and his wife and daughter walkinghome from church – I think it was in Carnarvon –anyway it was a totally innocuous photographand the SABC used it to illustrate some ANCinsurgents who had been shot on the Swazi border.I phoned them up the next day and gave them helland told them I was taking it further. I then got onto my lawyer, Raymond Tucker, who was a realtiger. Raymond got them to broadcast an apologyon the same news programme.FS: What are some of the processes thatguide your work? How much is by design,composition, editing and so on?DG: I don’t walk about with a camera all thetime. I only pick up a camera when I have a fairidea about what I’m interested in - a certain aspectof the country initially, black/white interaction orconfrontation or any other subject. Then I instilthe needed visual qualities. I always do a littlepreliminary research and afterwards, if thephotograph is of interest, I will research further orcommission someone else to do research. I oftengive context or information to my photographs. Idon’t regard my pictures as pristine objects butrather as part of the matrix of life here, hence theresearch and information.FS: When you were photographing your nowfamous series “Some Afrikaners” and “SomeAfrikaners Revisited”, did you ever encounterany hostility?DG: Very little among Afrikaners themselves.FS: What are you currently working on?DG: Post-Apartheid public sculptures in ourcity, landscapes in the Karoo and ex-offenders atthe scene of a crime.FS: What do you see as the standout momentsin your career?DG: I don’t think in those terms, I reallydon’t. At the moment, I’m thinking about aphotograph I’m going to be doing on Mondaymorning.FS: How do you handle all the worldwideacclaim and attention? It is, after all, more thanmost South African artists have managed to attain.DG: Well first of all, I don’t regard myself asan artist. The word ‘art’ is not in my vocabulary.FS: In the world that I come from, you areregarded as an artist, one of the great socialpainters. 112
JEWISH AFFAIRS ROSH HASHANAH 2012DG: I’m not an artist, but let’s not argue aboutterminology. You ask me how I handle it. I don’tknow. I just deal with people when they come tome. It could be nice to have the ego massaged, butI really don’t have an ego. It’s not of great or anyimportance to me.APPENDIXDAVID GOLDBLATT – SELECT AWARDS,PUBLIC COLLECTIONS, EXHIBITIONS ANDBOOKSPrizes and AwardsCamera Austria Prize 1995; Honorary Doctorate ofFine Arts, University of Cape Town 2001; HasselbladFoundational Award in Photography 2006; HonoraryDoctorate of Literature, University of theWitwatersrand, 2008; Henri Cartier-Bresson Award,2009; Lifetime Achievement Award, Arts and CultureTrust, 2009; Lucie Lifetime Achievement Award, 2010;Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award (with IvanVladislavic), 2011; Honorary Doctorate San FranciscoArt Institute, 2011.Principal public collectionsSouth African National Gallery, Cape Town;Johannesburg Art Gallery; University of theWitwatersrand; Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf;Bibliotheque Nationale. Paris; Museum of ModernArt, New York; National Gallery of Victoria,Melbourne; Victoria and Albert Museum, London;The French National Art Collection; The Art Galleryof Western Australia; Ludwig Museum, Vienna; HuisMarseille, Amsterdam; Fotomuseum, Winterthur,Switzerland; San Francisco Museum of Modern ArtPrincipal Exhibitions:Photographers’ Gallery, London, 1974, 1986; SideGallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1985; National Galleryof Victoria, Melbourne, 1975; South African NationalGallery, Cape Town, 1983; Various exhibitions since1978 at the Market Theatre Galleries, Johannesburg;Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1998; NetherlandsArchitecture Institute, Rotterdam, 1998-9; SouthAfrican National Gallery, Cape Town, 1999; AxaGallery, New York, 2001;Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2002;Witte de With, Rotterdam, 2002; Centro Cultural deBelem-Fundacao, Lisbon, 2002; Modern Art, Oxford,2003; Pala’s des Beaux Arts, Brussels, 2003;Lenbachhaus, Munich, 2003; Museum Kunst Palast,Duesseldorf, 2005;Johannesburg Art Gallery 2005; Arles Rencontres,2006; Fotomuseuin Winterthur, Switzerland, 2007;Fluis Marseilles, Amsterdam, 2007; Berkeley ArtMuseum, 2007; Serralves Museum, Porto, Portugal,2008; Konsthal, Malmo, Sweden, 2009; New Museum,New York, 2009; Jewish Museum, New York, 2010;Jewish Museum, Cape Town, 2010; Amherst ArtMuseum, Massachusetts, 2010;Various group shows including: “South Africa: theCordoned Heart”, South Africa and the LTSA, 1986;In/Sight, African Photographers, 1940 to the Present”,Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1996; “BlankArchitecture, apartheid and after”, Rotterdam andBerlin, 1998-99; “Home”, Art Gallery of WesternAustralia, Perth, 2000; “The Short Century”, MuseumVilla Stuck, Munich, 2001; “Documenta 11”, Kassel,Germany, 2002; “Africa Remix”, Museum KunstPalast, Duesseldorf 2003; “History, Memory, Society”,with Henri Cartier Bresson and Lee Friedlander, TateModem, London, 2004; “Faces in the Crowd”,Whitechapel, London, 2005; “Documenta 12”, Kassel.Germany, 2007; “Figure & Fictions” V&A London,2011;Venice Biennale, 2011.BooksOn The Mines with Nadine Gordimer, Struik, CapeTown, 1973Some Afrikaners Photographed, Murray CrawfordJohannesburg, 1975In Boksburg, Gallery Press, Cape Town, 1982Lifetimes: Under Apartheid, with Nadine Gordimer,Knopf, New York, 1986The Transported of KwaNdebele with BrendaGoldblatt and Phillip van Niekerk, Aperture and DukeUniversity, New York, 1989.South Africa: The Structure of Things Then, OxfordUniversity Press. Cape Town, and Monacelli Press,New York, 1988David Goldblatt 55 (one of a series aboutphotographers) Phaidon Press, London, 2001David Goldblatt Fifty-One Years, Museu d’ArtContemporani de Barcelona, 2001Particulars, Goodman Gallery Editions, JHB, 2003[Awarded Arles Book Prize for 2004]Intersections, Prestel, Munich, 2005David Goldblatt Photographs, Contrasto, Rome,2006David Goldblatt HasselbladAwad 2006 HatjeCantz, Ostfildeni and F-Jasselblad CenterSome Afrikaners Revisited, Umuzi, Cape Town,2007Intersections Intersected, Museum Serralves, Porto,2008Kith, Kin and Khaya, Goodman Gallery,Johannesburg, 2010NOTES1In this regard, the following independent observations areof interest: “Goldblatt’s rigorous, almost rigorous attentionto detail - whether it be in a seemingly innocuous commaor the Coca Cola sign in the window of the corner cafe, isone of the things that makes him the artist today” (AlexDodd, Mail & Guardian, 3 July 1998) ; “Precise indescription, Goldblatt’s photographs are also acute inhistorical and political perception. They provide a sense ofthe texture of daily life and an important piece of missinginformation regarding life in Apartheid South Africa”Susan Kismaric, Associate Curator Museum of ModernArt, New York.13
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