fifty-one years

David Goldblatt

By Nadine Gordimer, Michael Godby, J.M. Coetzee, and more

2001

First Published

4.38

Average Rating

456

Number of Pages

13H51M

Audio Length

David Goldblatt stands as South Africa's most respected and important documentary photographer. His work in his native country has consistently been uncompromising in its critical exploration of South African society, through the aparthied years during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, and into the more recent post-aparthied period. His body of photographs of the architecture of South Africa make an eloquent statement about the inequalities of life there: a beautiful villa on the sea juxtaposed with a black mother and child sleeping where their now destroyed house once stood; the beautifully detailed, whitewashed stairway of a winery and a man building a tiny house for himself out of cinder-block. This monograph, published on the occasion of a major retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, brings together work from throughout his career, including recent, never-before-published material. Its images of architecture, people, and landscape speak to the social injustice of his world, but also maintain a delicate balance with aesthetic achievement. It also includes essays by prominent South African writers Nadine Gordiner and J.M. Coetzee, and by Okwui Enwezor, curator of the upcoming Documenta XII exhibition.

Avg Rating

4.38

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

63%

4 STARS

13%

3 STARS

25%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Authors

Nadine Gordimer

Author · 48 books

Nadine Gordimer was a South African writer, political activist, and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was recognized as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity". Gordimer's writing dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa. Under that regime, works such as Burger's Daughter and July's People were banned. She was active in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days when the organization was banned. She was also active in HIV/AIDS causes.

John Maxwell Coetzee is an author and academic from South Africa. He became an Australian citizen in 2006 after relocating there in 2002. A novelist and literary critic as well as a translator, Coetzee has won the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature.

David Goldblatt

Author · 1 book

David Goldblatt was a South African photographer noted for his portrayal of South Africa during the period of apartheid and the country's landscapes. Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.