David Goldblatt: PARTICULARS 30 April - June 12, 2010 Opening Reception Thursday April, 29
From our friends at the Howard Greenberg gallery:
As the exclusive U.S. representative of David Goldblatt's photographs, Howard Greenberg is pleased to presentParticulars,the first New York gallery exhibition of this artist's work. Goldblatt is arguably South Africa's most important documentarian of the changing political landscape during Apartheid and the post-Apartheid years. For more than 50 years, he has traced the impact of Apartheid on the faces of South Africans and on the natural and architectural landscape of the country, revealing the bigotry that continues to infiltrate the culture.
Woman collecting shellfish, Port St. Johns, Transkei, 1975
Particulars-a body of work from the mid 1970s-is fiercely relevant today as current economic hardships expose the barriers that class, race, and culture still impose on the world.
Particular stems from Goldblatt's more traditional portraiture and his experience working in his father's tailoring business. "Of my life experiences, one that was crucial was that of working in my father's shop in Randfontein, where I acquired a consciousness of bodily particulars that was technical rather than subjective," remarked Goldblatt. In 1975, after working for several years on portraits of the residents of Soweto and Johannesburg in their homes and on the streets, Goldblatt began to explore the "particulars" of their bodies "as affirmation and embodiments of their selves." In doing this, he has created a powerful series of photographs illustrating how a small detail of a body, clothing, hair or skin can lead a viewer to make judgments about class and color, and time and place. Tired feet, entwined legs, arms adorned with jewelry, and the nape of the neck fill the entire frame, uncovering and articulating perceptions about the social, economic, and cultural divides of South Africa.
The limited edition book, Particulars, won the award for the best photography book at the Rencontres d'Arles festival in 2004.
David Goldblatt was born in Randfonetin, South Africa in 1930. He became interested in photography in high school, but found little opportunity in the field of magazine photography. Discouraged, he joined his family's menswear business and enrolled part-time at the university. Following his father's death in 1962, he began working full-time as a photographer. Goldbaltt has published 10 books of his work and has had more than 20 gallery and museum exhibitions. His photographic essay South Africa: The Structure of Things Then was published and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1998. Goldblatt's work was included in Documenta 11 in 2002,Documenta 12 in 2007, and the travelling exhibition Africa Remix (2004-07). Goldblatt won the 2006 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. He received an Honorary Doctorate in Literature from the University of the Witwatersrand in April 2008. In June 2009, Goldblatt was the recipient of Henri Cartier-Bresson Award for his project "TJ", about the city of Johannesburg. In 2009, The New Museum exhibited Intersections Intersected which received critical acclaim. In May 2010, The Jewish Museum in New York will open South African Photographs: David Goldblatt. His work is included in many significant museum collections including the Biblitheque Nationale, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, among others.
In addition, we will also exhibit an important selection of Henri Cartier-Bresson images. The group includes vintage photographs from the 1930s printed by Cartier-Bresson as well as specially created prints made in the 1950s which he gave as gifts and were not used for reproduction purposes.
Starting April 30th, the exhibition can be viewed at www.howardgreenberg.com
