South African Photographs: David Goldblatt
An exhibition at the Jewish Museum, New York City, May 2–September 19, 2010
Kith, Kin and Khaya: South African Photographs
by David Goldblatt
Goodman Gallery, 200 pp., $40.00 (paper)
As a matter of crude shorthand, the South African photographer David Goldblatt might be described as his country’s Walker Evans. Though Evans was one of Goldblatt’s models when he was starting out more than a half-century ago, the comparison at this point serves only to hint at the moral clarity of his vision, the seriousness of his purpose, and the scope of his achievement. It does not prepare you for the stirring experience that awaits you at the Jewish Museum, where a copious exhibition of his black-and-white work, mainly from the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties—the heyday of apartheid—will be on display through September 19.
