"Goldblatt, who never really considered himself a photojournalist, divides his work into two categories: the professional and the personal. The professional was what he did on assignment for some editor or corporation. . . . The personal was what he did out of his own deeply felt need to engage his tumultuous land and its people. It’s an engagement that went far beyond racial conflict and oppression without ever becoming distanced from those unavoidable realities. His way was always to go deeper, to find an oblique angle that went right to the heart of the matter: an image bespeaking loneliness, stunted aspiration, fragile pride on both sides of the racial divide, not infrequently with an intimation of imminent violence, or its result." ~ Joseph Lelyveld
Mofolo South, Soweto, September 1972.Photograph © David Goldblatt.
I've mentioned South African photographer David Goldblatt here a number of times. Yet another exhibition of his work is running in NYC this summer. You can find an appreciation and slide show here at the NYRB blog. (The Goldblatt show is running in Tandem with an exhibition of films by fellow South African William Kentridge.)
