calendario eventi  :: 

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14/7/2009

Two exhibitions

New Museum, New York

Intersections Intersected: The Photography of David Goldblatt

Over the last fifty years, David Goldblatt has documented the complexities and contradictions of South African society. His photographs capture the social and moral value systems that governed the tumultuous history of his country’s segregationist policies and continue to influence its changing political landscape. Goldblatt began photographing professionally in the early 1960s, focusing on the effects of the National Party’s legislation of apartheid. The son of Jewish Lithuanian parents who fled to South Africa to escape religious persecution, Goldblatt was forced into a peculiar situation, being at once a white man in a racially segregated society and a member of a religious minority with a sense of otherness. He used the camera to capture the true face of apartheid as his way of coping with horrifying realities and making his voice heard. Goldblatt did not try to capture iconic images, nor did he use the camera as a tool to entice revolution through propaganda. Instead, he reveals a much more complex portrait, including the intricacies and banalities of daily life in all aspects of society. Whether showing the plight of black communities, the culture of the Afrikaner nationalists, the comfort of white suburbanites, or the architectural landscape, Goldblatt’s photographs are an intimate portrayal of a culture plagued by injustice.

In Goldblatt’s images we can see a universal sense of people’s aspirations, making do with their abnormal situation in as normal a way as possible. People go about their daily lives, trying to preserve a sense of decency amid terrible hardship. Goldblatt points out a connection between people (including himself) and the environment, and how the environment reflects the ideologies that built it. His photographs convey a sense of vulnerability as well as dignity. Goldblatt is very much a part of the culture that he is analyzing. Unlike the tradition of many documentary photographers who capture the “decisive moment,” Goldblatt’s interest lies in the routine existence of a particular time in history.

Goldblatt continues to explore the consciousness of South African society today. He looks at the condition of race relations after the end of apartheid while also tackling other contemporary issues, such as the influence of the AIDS epidemic and the excesses of consumption. For his “Intersections Intersected” series, Goldblatt looks at the relationship between the past and present by pairing his older black-and-white images with his more recent color work. Here we may notice photography’s unique association with time: how things were, how things are, and also that the effects of apartheid run deep. It will take much more time to heal the wounds of a society that was divided for so long. Yet, there is a possibility for hope, recognition of how much has changed politically in the time between the two images, and a potential optimism for the future. Goldblatt’s work is a dynamic and multilayered view of life in South Africa, and he continues to reveal that society’s progress and incongruities.

—Joseph Gergel, Curatorial Fellow

David Goldblatt
Born in Randfontein, South Africa in 1930, David Goldblatt has been documenting the changing political landscape of his country for more than five decades. His photographic essay South Africa: the Structure of Things Then was made into a monograph and also shown 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 traveling mega-exhibition “Africa Remix” (2004–07). His limited edition book, Particulars, won the award for the best photography book at the Rencontres d’Arles festival, France, in 2004. 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

“Intersections Intersected: The Photography of David Goldblatt” is organized by Fundação de Serralves, Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, Portugal and presented by the New Museum, New York.
The exhibition is curated by Ulrich Loock, Curator, Fundação de Serralves, Museu de Arte Contemporânea. Its presentation at the New Museum is organized by Richard Flood, Chief Curator, New Museum.
Major support provided by the Robert Mapplethorpe Photography Fund

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Shaft Project Space

Rigo 23
The Deeper They Bury Me, The Louder My Voice Becomes

For nearly 20 years, Rigo 23 has created murals, paintings, drawings, and performances, conducted interventions and published zines advocating for social and political change. His site-specific installation for the New Museum is the newest in a series of works that take as their subject political prisoners such as Leonard Peltier, Geronimo ji-Jaga [Elmer Pratt], Mumia Abu-Jamal [Wesley Cook], and the Angola 3. Entitled The Deeper They Bury Me, The Louder My Voice Becomes, the work is inspired by the words of Herman Wallace, a member of the Angola 3. Wallace, together with Albert Woodfox, began the first prison chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1971 at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola. Robert H. King joined them when he was transferred to the prison after being falsely accused of a crime in 1972. The Angola 3 fought for prison reform from within the prison system by a variety of methods. They staged hunger strikes to assure that prisoners were handed their meals (rather than having them served on the floor), they protected young prisoners from sexual predators, and perhaps most importantly, they insisted upon equal rights for all prisoners.

After 32 years of incarceration, 29 of which were spent in CCR (Closed Cell Restriction)—a minimum of 23 hours a day inside a 6 x 9 x 12-foot cell—King’s conviction was overturned in 2001. Rigo 23 developed a friendship with King following his release and painted TRUTH (2002), a mural in San Francisco’s Civic Center to commemorate his triumphant vindication. Wallace and Woodfox, however, remain in isolation. King continues to work tirelessly for their release, sharing his experiences at universities, schools, museums, and community centers internationally, and through his recently published autobiography.

The Deeper They Bury Me, The Louder My Voice Becomes is intended to provide a sensory experience, highlighting the confinement of a kind of “non-space” in the museum and challenging visitors with views that mimic those confronting over two million prisoners in the United States, home to the world’s largest penal system. This installation steers the viewer to an unfamiliar place—such as a restricted prison cell—to allow individual contemplation as well as the possibility of a collective conversation about the underlying politics of our justice system. Wallace’s words, reiterated in the title of Rigo 23’s new work, reverberate between the narrow walls of the Shaft Project Space, but also extend beyond the confines of the New Museum to alert the public to the plight of political prisoners worldwide.

This project is made possible by The Greenwall Foundation.

The Deeper They Bury Me, The Louder My Voice Becomes is organized by Amy Mackie, Curatorial Assistant.

For more information about the Angola 3, please visit: http://www.angola3.org

A new artist publication to accompany The Deeper They Bury Me, The Louder My Voice Becomes is available in the New Museum bookstore.

Image: David Goldblatt, Man with an injured arm. Hillbrow, Johannesburg. June, 1972, 1972. Black-and-white

Press contacts:
Gabriel Einsohn, New Museum 212.219.1222 x217 geinsohn@newmuseum.org
Andrea Schwan, Andrea Schwan Inc. 212.924.1033 andrea@andreaschwan.com

New Museum
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Thursday and Friday 12-9 PM
Saturday and Sunday 12-6 PM
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The Museum is closed to the public on Monday and Tuesday, except for pre-scheduled group tours on Tuesday.
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General Admission: $12
Seniors: $10
Students: $8
18 and under: FREE

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