David Goldblatt
In 1975, the Transkei was one of ten ‘homelands’, reservations to which the majority of black South Africans were relocated under apartheid rule. While these homelands were granted some semblance of self-governance and ruled by tribal leaders, they were hopelessly overcrowded and plagued by poverty. With no viable economy they became, in effect, labour reservoirs to service white South Africa. Goldblatt’s 'Happy Days Store', a photograph of a Transkei general dealer, is an image of quiet irony, the store’s name insensible to its circumstances.
b.1930, Randfontein; d.2018, Johannesburg
“I was drawn,” the late photographer David Goldblatt wrote, “not to the events of the time but to the quiet and commonplace where nothing ‘happened’ and yet all was contained and immanent.” A preeminent chronicler of South African life under apartheid and after, Goldblatt bore witness to how this life is written on the land, in its structures or their absence. Unconcerned with documenting significant historic moments, his photographs stand outside the events of the time and yet are eloquent of them. Through Goldblatt’s lens, the prosaic reveals a telling poignancy. Even in those images that appear benign, much is latent in them – histories and politics, desires and dread. His photographs are quietly critical reflections on the values and conditions that have shaped the country; those structures both ideological and tangible. Among his most notable photobooks are On the Mines (1973), Some Afrikaners Photographed (1975), In Boksburg (1982), The Structure of Things Then (1998), and Particulars (2003).