Santu Mofokeng

KEYNOTE: The first monograph on the major South African photographer Santu Mofokeng offers a visual record of the complexities of a multi-layered society, from the apartheid era to the time thereafter. Published to coincide with a major traveling retrospective on one of South Africa's most acclaimed photographers, this book brings together an exceptional selection of Santu Mofokeng's photographic essays from within that country and beyond. Chasing Shadows takes an undaunted look at the last thirty years in and out of South Africa: everyday life in the townships, the lives of tenant farmers, images of religious rituals, along with his most recent project "Radiant Landscapes." This volume features the finest examples of Mofokeng's black and- white as well as color images. The book also includes essays, related archival documents that bring the photographs into historic context, and an extensive interview with the photographer, making this volume the definitive book on Mofokeng's eloquent and timely work. AUTHOR: Corinne Diserens is an independent curator based in Berlin, Germany. She has curated numerous exhibitions on artists such as David Goldblatt, Dan Graham, and Vito Acconci. ILLUSTRATIONS 200

Santu Mofokeng : Thirty Years of Photographic Essays

Chasing Shadows

James T. Campbell

"...with the so-called civilised workers, almost without exception their civilisation was only skin deep." O. Pirow, quoting South African Prime Minister J. B. M. Hertzog For this book Santu Mofokeng collected private photographs which urban black working and middle-class families in South Africa commissioned between 1890 and 1950, a time when the government was creating policies towards those designated as "natives". Painterly in style, the images evoke the artifices of Victorian photography. Some of them are fiction, a creation of the artist in terms of setting, props, clothing and pose - yet there is no evidence of coercion. We believe these images, as they reveal something about how these people imagined themselves. In this work Mofokeng analyses the sensibilities, aspirations and self-image of the black population and its desire for representation and social recognition in times of colonial rule and suppression. The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890-1950 is drawn from an ongoing research project of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

Santu Mofokeng

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