Visit to International Center of Photography New York

Rise and Fall of Apartheid

Exhibition is Rise and Fall of Apartheid. To a degree it is photo journalism, a combination of moving images in documentary style and stills of key players. Example is funeral at Sharpeville 1960 Many images from unidentified photographer.

Like Nanny and Child by Peter Magubane. A white girl sits on European only bench while black Nanny tends her hair from an adjoining bench. Some patronising language such as from Henrik Vorwoerd, minister of native affairs in 1950 and architect of apartheid, which he described as good neighbourliness.

Curator organises into themes eg Signs - example is Delivery Boys and African Servants Entrance in Lane.

Another example is series of images of  The Black Sash anti apartheid women's group.

A lot of South African photography was struggle photography, especially pronounced in aftermath of Soweto uprising. Striking images by Sam Nzima of Hector Pieterson the first identified student killed during uprising.

Graphic image by Magubane of police randomly shooting passers by from notorious green car.

 Ballen produced Dorps - Small towns of South Africa in 1983. Similar to work by Roy Stryker in 1950s. Houses, churches, cars even. Front Door.

Joe Alfers by contrast took images of African folk going about their work.

Chris Ledochowski's images are of black family groups in houses mainly. Careful use of light leaves faces almost unidentifiable in some cases, e.g  Plasterer.

The Bang bang Club refers to four photographers - Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbrook, and Joao Silva. - who documented the bloody turmoil of early 1990s. They got the title from a magazine but were not a club, simply a group of friends. Carter was first to photograph a necklacing , a public execution effected by lighting a petrol doused tyre round the victim's chest and arms.  Marinovich and Carter won Pulitzer Prize. The work was made into a film entitled The Bang Bang Club  in 2010.