![]() Born in 1930 in the Johannesburg gold-mining suburb of Randfontein, his childhood was shaped by a society divided by the laws and values of apartheid. Courtesy: the artist and Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg and Cape TownĪs one of the key progenitors of 20th-century documentary photographic practice, Goldblatt has consistently returned to the same set of subjects. As a result, his photographs rarely index the turmoil and carnage of South Africa’s troubled history instead, they speak to the complexities of photography as a reflexive and analytical mode of historical representation.ĭavid Goldblatt, F ifteen-year-old Lawrence Matjee after his assault and detention by the Security Police, Khotso House, de Villiers Street, Soweto, Johannesburg, 1985. For his early portraits of South Africans, Goldblatt avoided looking through the camera lens, preferring instead to maintain eye contact with his subjects. However, for more than 60 years, David Goldblatt has shown little interest in documenting violent events, preferring instead to focus on the conditions that led to them. Atrocities such as these were a common occurrence in South Africa during the brutal years that preceded the fall of apartheid. His injuries are the result of a police arrest: Matjee was forcibly dragged from his home by his feet, dislocating his arms in the process. As the caption tells us, the image records Fifteen-year-old Lawrence Matjee after his assault and detention by the Security Police, Khotso House, de Villiers Street, Soweto, Johannesburg. A young man stares blankly into a space somewhere beyond the camera, his presence registering a dual sense of emotional alarm and physical fatigue.
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