Life through a lens: Ernest Cole photographs shed light on apartheid

[Judi Lynn]

Life through a lens: Ernest Cole photographs shed light on apartheid
Exhibition celebrates the work a long-neglected pioneer who captured the beauty and the ugliness of segregated South Africa

David Smith guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 25 November 2010 12.17 GMT

It was standing-room only at the Goodman gallery, on Johannesburg's suburban "art strip", so I dropped to the floor and squatted. All eyes were on the author Ivan Vladislavic and photographer David Goldblatt.

Behind them was the latter's ironic shot of the ruins of Shareworld, a failed amusement park for Sowetans in the shadow of Soccer City, the World Cup stadium.

Days earlier, I slipped into a seat in an auditorium deep in the belly of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, in the rather less fashionable area of Hillbrow. There were only three other spectators, barely a quorum. But we had gathered to watch a documentary about another South African photographer, Ernest Cole, whose work was on display upstairs.

Goldblatt, 80, exhibited around the world, and Cole, who died in penury at the age of 49, began on a similar path that was to dramatically diverge. It seemed that one would enjoy lasting reverence while the other was lost to obscurity. But one of life's elegant conjunctions has seen an act of homage deliver a posthumous redemption.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/25/ernest-cole-david-goldblatt-apartheid-photography

http://www.joburg.org.za.nyud.net:8090/culture/images/stories/2010/sept/cole1.jpg

Earnest boy squats on haunches and
strains to follow lesson in heat
of packed classroom.
(Caption from House of Bondage)

http://actango.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2010/11/police_swoop-l.jpg

Ernest Cole has published only one book of his work: House of Bondage,
but he is still regarded has one of the most influencial photographer
of South Africa. He was banned from the country after its publication
died in exile.

http://www.shahidulnews.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Screen-shot-2010-11-19-at-14.08.05.png

Ernest Cole the photographer. The Ernest Cole Family Trust/
Hasselblad Foundation Collection
Homecoming for Stark Record of Apartheid
November 19th, 2010

By CELIA W. DUGGER

Published: New York Times November 17, 2010

JOHANNESBURG — When he was only in his 20s Ernest Cole, a black photographer who stood barely five feet tall, created one of the most harrowing pictorial records of what it was like to be black in apartheid South Africa. He went into exile in 1966, and the next year his work was published in the United States in a book, “House of Bondage,” but his photographs were banned in his homeland where he and his work have remained little known.

In exile Mr. Cole’s life crumbled. For much of the late 1970s and 1980s he was homeless in New York, bereft of even his cameras. “His life had become a shadow,” a friend later said. Mr. Cole died at 49 in 1990, just a week after Nelson Mandela walked free. His sister flew back to South Africa with his ashes on her lap.

More, with photos:
http://www.shahidulnews.com/

[elleng]

1. Thanks for this.

[tabatha]

2. Thank you.

[givemebackmycountry]

3. God, what a great man and a wonderful story - I was aware of him-

As I have seen some of his photographs before.

I notice this story is in the Guardian.
That saddens me.

We don't get stories like this in our newspapers.
In the greatest country ever...

That saddens me even more.