| BACK Foreword|Curator's Preface Co-curators' comments|Avoiding the event Acknowledgements|Ordering the catalogue | PhotoSynthesis Contemporary South African Photography |
| Foreword The invitation from the Standard Bank National Arts Festival to curate an exhibition of contemporary South African photography is a significant and timeous acknowledgment of the role that the South African National Gallery (SANG) plays in acquiring, showing and promoting photography. Since the reopening of the building in October 1991, after renovations and the installation of new climate control and lighting systems, there have always been photographs on the walls – as photographic exhibitions or as part of exhibitions in other media.1 We have received and generated travelling exhibitions2 and we have curated exhibitions for international shows.3 'PhotoSynthesis' is the third major national project that has originated at the SANG. In 1990, sixteen eminent photographers were invited to submit project proposals of their own choice. An amount of R8 000,00 was allocated for a single commission, but the submissions were of such an excellent and interesting nature that R40 000,00 was raised from the Foundation for the Creative Arts (FCA) to add another five projects. The FCA also sponsored the catalogue of the exhibition 'Through a Lens Darkly' which opened on 26 August 1995; all the works entered the SANG Permanent Collection. For 'People's Portraits', which was organised in collaboration with the Mail & Guardian, nine thousand entry forms were distributed. All South Africans who have an interest in photography were invited to participate and a selection was made for the exhibition which opened in September 1995, toured nationally and is scheduled to be shown at the 1997 Edinburgh Festival. The curatorial approach to 'PhotoSynthesis' was different. Approximately one hundred photographers, as well as other artists who use photography as an expressive vehicle or as a point of departure for their work, were invited to submit slides or working prints for selection. There were no constraints, except that the photographs had to be post-January 1990, for our aim was to stimulate production of new work and to uncover, document and reveal trends and directions in contemporary South African photography. We were open to approaches from individuals and groups who were not included on our original list and convened five selection meetings before arriving at the final exhibition which comprises the work of 34 individuals. Because the venue at the Grahamstown Festival is small, a decision was taken to represent each photographer with a minimum of one work and to expand on the number of works for the exhibitions at the Standard Bank Gallery, the SANG and elsewhere. The curatorial process broke new ground. In addition to SANG staff Kathleen Grundlingh (SANG Curator of Photography) and me, Thobile Skepe and Anele Ngoko formed part of the team. Thobile is in his second year of training at the SANG as a Standard Bank trainee in the field of exhibitions. Anele is a photographer and member of the SANG Reconstruction and Development Forum; one of the objectives of the Forum is to draw individuals into our activities, thereby sharing our joint skills and resources and learning about the talents, circumstances and aspirations of our compatriots. The process has been enormously challenging and enriching. The selection panel comprised the four curators and Jane Taylor, Chairperson of the SANG Acquisitions Committee, Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of the Western Cape and well-known author and curator. 'PhotoSynthesis' was largely funded by the Standard Bank National Arts Festival as one of the main visual arts events for 1997; at the SANG we budgeted for costs related to travel and the run of the exhibition here, and the RDP Forum contributed to Anele Ngoko's expenses while working on the project; his trip to Grahamstown was made possible by the Association for Visual Arts in Cape Town; the catalogue was sponsored by Sappi. On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the SANG, and all of us who have been involved in this special project, I would like to express deep gratitude to: Alan Crump, Festival Director, for giving us the opportunity of curating the exhibition; Lynette Marais for her care and interest; all who contributed financially; the artists who were prepared to submit their work; the curatorial team and selection panel for their commitment, hard work and the spirit in which our task was conducted. We owe a special thanks to Kathleen Grundlingh, who coordinated the project and carried the bulk of responsibility, and to Nicolaas Vergunst for the catalogue. 'PhotoSynthesis' is another milestone in redressing the neglect of photography in South Africa, and in the understanding and appreciation of one of the most controversial, vital, provocative and powerful expressive mediums of our time.
Notes
Curator's Preface The exhibition 'PhotoSynthesis' endeavours to reflect the varied trends and discourses that characterize creative South African photography in the 1990s. In the 1970s and 1980s South African photography was largely dominated by the genre of social documentary. Used primarily as a recording tool to help bring about political change, South African photography played a vital part in the struggle against apartheid. But this meant that the more creative applications of the medium were relegated to the side-lines. Ironically, the demise of apartheid left these South African photographers each with his or her own creative crisis. Freed from their collective political purpose, photographers have had to redefine their individual photographic identities and aims. Thus, the 1990s have heralded the rebirth of a South African photography which is rich in diversity. In post-apartheid South Africa, photographers and artists are exploring the potential of the medium as a vehicle for self-expression. 'PhotoSynthesis' represents a first attempt to recognize and reflect on a selection of works by a diverse collection of highly creative individuals engaging us through the medium of photography today. The works on exhibition reveal artists' concerns in many different areas: these broadly include gender issues, questions around an African identity, philosophical discourses about our place in the universe and conceptual works which do not readily give up their meaning. The ordinary family snapshot is scrutinized, the established traditional landscape photograph is recast and historical processes are given new life. The use of photomontage and photo-construction, historically associated with propagandist work is revisited as is the traditional technique of hand colouring studio portraits fashionable in the 1930s and 1940s. In contrast to this, the stark reality of our existence is conveyed through images by press photographers. This century has seen the development of photography from being a poor relative of the arts to being a forunner amongst creative mediums. Contemporary photography, freed from its constraint as a framed, two-dimensional image, has become interdisclipinary, borrowing not only from its own history, but also from all other art forms in its constant and relentless quest to redefine itself. This ability has engaged many of the foremost painters and sculptors of this century. With its roots firmly embedded in the everyday experience of global culture it has captured our imagination across all boundaries as the medium of our time.
Kathleen Grundlingh
Co-curators' Comments Trainee Curator's Report Oh, what a great adventure for me to have my mind and my brain stimulated by participation in this project, after having been very patient with the progress of the South African National Gallery (SANG) Reconstruction and Development (RDP) Forum, which was initiated as early as May 1995. In 1989, after I had to drop out as a student at Sivuyile College because I could not afford the fees for my first year, I gave up all hope of being an artist. My mind began to be occupied by the negative attitudes that were caused by apartheid and the lack of understanding of one another. The opportunity of being trained through the SANG RDP Forum in administrative skills and for capacity building in the community, was my first personal achievement. Towards the end of 1996 I had a great shock, when I had the invitation from the Director of the SANG in one of our RDP Forum meetings to assist in curating the photographic exhibition for the 1997 Grahamstown Festival. To provide in-house training is part of the vision of the Forum. This invitation was a second achievement for me as a participant in the Forum. I was also asked by Carol Kaufmann to make a selection of two items for the exhibition 'Heritage Choices' that opened in December 1996. These kinds of opportunities made me feel very honoured and an achiever in the RDP Forum, and I began to see the light coming for me. Yes, after I had gone through frustrations of being a so-called township artist or photographer, I finally achieved something in a short period of two years by making myself available for the discussions that led to the birth of the SANG RDP Forum. I now feel strong enough to go on with meeting the challenges as an organizer for community groups and township-based organizations and associations. By being around the Gallery I feel that I am closer to the information that is needed by an artist and I am striving to make way for more artists, from both sides, that were separated in the past. I thank the SANG for all the opportunities I received, also being able to make use of all the facilities I need as an organizer for the Langa Arts Collective and Sisonke Arts Association. By having this access I have begun to organize more effectively. I now want to lobby on behalf of the SANG RDP Forum that brings us together as one nation. It has been a great opening of my eyes and my mind to have worked with the team, sharing ideas on the ways in which one looks at and assesses a photograph. I also feel inspired by the work of other photographers and the manner in which they treat and present their work.
Trainee Exhibition Officer's Report As a Trainee Exhibition Officer at the South African National Gallery, I am mainly involved with planning and installing exhibitions. I started early February 1996 working on shows like the 'Contemporary Danish Art', 'Miscast: Negotiating Khoisan History and Material Culture', 'Jane Alexander: 1995 Standard Bank Young Artist', 'Cecil Skotnes Retrospective' and 'George Pemba Retrospective' exhibitions. During the same year I went to Grahamstown, where I helped with the installation of exhibitions in different museums; I was also a Gallery manager at the Albany museum. I was in attendance at the exhibitions, the Magnum Cinema and the Standard Bank Permanent Collection and I assisted with walkabouts. In 1997 my programme has changed slightly as compared to last year's. Even though I am still involved with exhibitions, I have worked on 'PhotoSynthesis'. I was drawn in with Anele Ngoko to improve our understanding in terms of what is required when planning an exhibition and what processes one needs to go through when selecting. Most of the time we were contacting people to make sure that the information about the show got to the right addresses and afterwards we selected works that we believed were good. Going through all that was very educational, because it improved my communication and my knowledge about other people's work. It gave me an understanding of the process involved in selecting an exhibition. I am now very happy once again because I will be helping with installing the very same exhibition in Grahamstown. I would like to thank Kathleen Grundlingh, Marilyn Martin and Jane Taylor for the thought-provoking ideas, I hope every one will enjoy the exhibition.
'Bob' Thobile Skepe
Avoiding the event
Something of an assertion
Something of an enquiry Hobbs notes, in his comment on this work, that by turning the image into a postcard he is engaging in the processes of mass reproduction. Such processes provoke problems within the art market which, after all, highly valorizes traces of authenticity, singularity, and uniqueness. By employing a medium which is borrowed expressly from the tourist trade, he is engaging with that line of debate which passed from Walter Benjamin to Andy Warhol and beyond: in an age of mechanical reproduction, what happens to the aura of an original work of art? But Hobbs's project has other dimensions which interest me, dimensions which are instructive about the body of photographic material on show here. What I am referring to, is the spectacularly uninteresting content of the image. In a recent conference address, Hobbs identified himself as a post-1976 South African, and articulated some ambiguity about his relation to a history which in certain specific terms pre-dated him. The banality of the world reproduced in the photograph would, I suggest, point to a similar ambiguity about the pleasures and ennui of being a post-revolution middle-class South African. More generally, though, I would suggest that this image is resonant with a dilemma and a possibility for South African photography: What do we do without "the event" to fix the camera's gaze? What is so striking about the submissions for this exhibition, is just how many of them are exploring formal properties such as design, illusion, framing. Julia Tiffin, for example, manipulates the photographic surface itself with acids and water, burning and blistering the skin of the emulsion. This "decay", as she terms it, is integral to the work's final meanings. Even where the camera has some documentary intent, there is a marked attention to aesthetics. Andrew Tshabangu's images of women working with braziers is luminously metaphysical in its tones, placing images within clusters of oval Victorian frames, giving the images he produces a self-conscious archaism and thereby invoking conventional landscape effects. Zwelethu Mthethwa's recent photographic portraits seem to belong to the vividly coloured language of his drawings, and as a result the photographs treat the domestic environments of the women he photographs as tone poems saturated with colour and graphic interest. This is not to say that South Africa no longer needs documentary photography, nor that we are outside of history and its battles. Rather, the works on this exhibition suggest that a whole new set of theoretical and practical questions are being raised about the capacities and obligations of photography as a medium.
Jane Taylor
Acknowlgements
EXHIBITION: Curatorial and selection team:
INTERNET: development and design:
INTERNET: digital imaging: Ordering catalogue
To order the catalogue please contact the SA National Gallery Reference Library | Catalogue List
Tamsyn Adams |
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