Frameworks
Goodman Gallery Johannesburg
27 January - 6 March 2024
David Goldblatt & Kiluanji Kia Henda | Frameworks
Goodman Gallery Johannesburg
David Goldblatt & Kiluanji Kia Henda
Head-Image
Goodman Gallery presents Frameworks, a dialogue between selected works by David Goldblatt and Kiluanji Kia Henda.
Through film and photography, the exhibition explores notions of migrancy and belonging in the context of two distinct yet interconnected societies in Southern Africa: Angola and South Africa - places that continue to wrestle with the legacy of colonial dispossession and its intersection with contemporary challenges. Both artists' practices have emerged within these complex social fabrics. Where urban, rural and nomadic structures - or their destruction - can be seen as expressions of underlying values and ideologies. From humble dwellings to large-scale urban development, Frameworks reflects on the permanence and impermanence of human settlements.
On one hand, Goldblatt, who lived and worked in Johannesburg his entire life, was concerned with the implicit conditions of South African society during and post Apartheid. Through long-term photographic essays, his approach as a documentarian was to use the medium to reveal hidden truths. Whereas the conceptual work of Kia Henda, born in Luanda during a civil war that followed independence from Portugal, is grounded in more imaginary methodologies, setting up fictitious and other-worldy scenarios based on key historical events.
David Goldblatt
Mother and child, Vorstershoop, North-West Province. 11 April
2003 (4_8874), 2003
Digital print in pigment inks on cotton rag paper
Image: 98.5 x 121.5 cm (38.8 x 47.8 in.)
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
David Goldblatt
The ruins of what is thought to be a 15th or 16th century pre-colonial village, Dithakong, North-West Province. 13 June 2003 (4_8886), 2003
Digital print in pigment inks on cotton rag paper
Image: 118.9 x 84.1 cm (46.8 x 33.1 in.)
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
Enquire
David Goldblatt
Mother and child in their home after the destruction of its shelter by officials of the Western Cape Development Board Crossroads, Cape Town, 11 October 1984. (4_3614), 1984
Silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper
Image: 30 x 37.8 cm (11.8 x 14.9 in.)
Edition of 10 + 2 AP
David Goldblatt
Iron Age corbelled stone huts, Sedan, Near Lindley, Ofs. 24/25 July 1992 (4_7699), 1992
Silver gelatin hand print
Image: 12.7 x 15.9 cm (5 x 6.3 in.)
David Goldblatt
The home of a couple who went to Cape Town to look for work, Engcobo, Transkei. 9 October 1975 (4_2344), 1975
Silver gelatin hand print
Image: 24 x 29.9 cm (9.4 x 11.8 in.)
David Goldblatt
House near Phuthaditjhaba. QwaQwa. 1 May 1989 (4_5971), 1989
Platinum print on Arches Platine 310gm
Image: 36.5 x 45.8 cm (14.4 x 18 in.)
Edition of 8 + 3 AP
David Goldblatt
A new shack under construction, Lenasia Extension 9, Lenasia, Johannesburg, 5 May 1990 4_6319, 5 May 1990
Silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper
Image: 48.5 x 61 cm (19.1 x 24 in.)
Edition of 10 + 2 AP
David Goldblatt
Thirteen kilometres of this coastline were a White Group Area, Bloubergstrand, Cape Town. 9 January 1986 (4_3958), 1986
Platinum print on Arches Platine 310gm
Image: 46.4 x 59 cm (18.3 x 23.2 in.)
Edition of 10 + 2 AP
David Goldblatt
Sheep farm, near Edenburg, Free State.
16 April 1982 (4_2831), 1982
Platinum print on Arches Platine 310gm
Image: 46.7 x 58.8 cm (18.4 x 23.1 in.)
Edition of 10 + 2 AP
David Goldblatt
Sheep Shearer, Piet Rhenoster with his cart, Colesburg-Philipstown Road. 30 December 1986 (4_4959), 1986
Silver gelatin hand print
Image: 28 x 35 cm (11 x 13.8 in.)
David Goldblatt
Sunday afternoon during the time of resistance against removal, Oukasie, Brits, Transvaal. 30 November 1986 (4_4760), 1986
Silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper
Image: 43.8 x 55.7 cm (17.2 x 21.9 in.)
Edition of 8 + 2 AP
David Goldblatt
Framework for a new dwelling, near Flagstaff, Transkei.
9 October 1975 (4_2340), 1975
Silver gelatin hand print
Image: 35.1 x 27.9 cm (13.8 x 11 in.)
David Goldblatt
The Place of the Elephant, uMgungundlovu, capital of the Zulu king, Dingane, destroyed after his defeat by the Boers in 1838: here under excavation and reconstruction by archaeologists, Dinganestad, Natal (4_6224), 1989
Silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper
Image: 48.7 x 48.6 cm (19.2 x 19.1 in.)
Open Edition
David Goldblatt
Remnant of a wild almond hedge planted in 1660 to prevent livestock from being taken out of the European settlement in South Africa by the indigenous Khoi. Kirstenbosch, Cape Town. 16 May 1993 (4_7667), 1993
Silver gelatin hand print
Image: 30.5 x 40 cm (12 x 15.7 in.)
David Goldblatt
Luke Kgatitsoe in his house, bulldozed in February 1984 by the government after the forced removal of the people of Magopa, a black-owned farm, which had been declared a “black spot”, Ventersdorp district, Transvaal. 21 October 1986 (4_4588), 1986
Silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper
Image: 27.1 x 34.2 cm (10.7 x 13.5 in.)
Edition of 8 + 2 AP
David Goldblatt
Methodist Church, Magopa, bulldozed after the community had been forcibly removed because the state had declared Magopa to be a “Black spot” - A Black-owned farm surrounded by Whiteowned farms. Magopa, Ventersdorp District. 21 October 1986 (4_4586), 1986
Silver gelatin hand print
Image: 35.1 x 27.9 cm (13.8 x 11 in.)
David Goldblatt
Man building his house, Marselle Township, Kenton-on-sea. 08 July 1990 (4_6470), 1990
Silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper, dibonded
Image: 118.9 x 84.1 cm (46.8 x 33.1 in.)
Edition of 10
David Goldblatt
On the day the people of Mathopestat celebrated their reprieve from Black spot forced removal, Mathopestat. 23 November 1986 (4_4709), 1986
Silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper
Image: 15.8 x 19.9 cm (6.2 x 7.8 in.)
The exhibition includes works from Goldblatt’s seminal photographic essay and publication, The Structures of Things Then (1961 - 1993), alongside colour works from the early 2000s. Iron-age corbelled hut (1993) shows a simple stone enclosure built by pastoralists moving south from Zimbabwe as a means of home and protection. For Goldblatt, its existence is a lasting testimony to the people who inhabited this land before the arrival of white settlers. By contrast, A mother and her child in their home after the destruction of its shelter by officials (1984) depicts the unsafe, volatile and temporary conditions of Black life in the wake of the Group Areas Act of 1950. As Goldblatt writes, “It was in Black homes that the struggle to retain values and traditions, to survive and transcend dispersion, dispossession, humiliation, and brutality, was mostly evidenced.”
David Goldblatt (1930 - 2018, Randfontein, South Africa), through his lens, chronicled the people, structures and landscapes of his country from 1948, through the rise of Afrikaner Nationalism, the apartheid regime and into the democratic era until his death in June, 2018. In particular, Goldblatt documented the people, landscapes and industry of the Witwatersrand, the resource-rich area in which he grew up and lived, where the local economy was based chiefly on mining.
On view until 25 March 2024 at Art Institute Chicago is No Ulterior Motive, an exhibition spanning Goldblatt’s seven-decade career.
Solo exhibitions include On the Mines, Norval Foundation, Cape Town (2019); Structures of Dominium and Democracy, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2018); The Pursuit of Values, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg (2015); Intersections Intersected: The Photography of David Goldblatt, New Museum, New York (2009), then Amherst Art Museum, Massachusett (2011); Hasselblad, Hasselblad Center, Göteborg (2006); Fifty-One Years, A Retrospective, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg (2005).
Collections include the South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Johannesburg Art Gallery; University of South Africa; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Hasselblad Collection, Göteborg; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris and Art Institute, Chicago.
Kiluanji Kia Henda
Structures of Survival (Namibe Desert), 2022
Inkjet print on fine art paper (cotton paper)
Work (each): 40 x 60 cm (15.7 x 23.6 in.)
Edition of 5 + 1 AP
Structures of Survival (2022) by Kia Henda depicts the fragile framework for a house in the heart of the Namib Desert. Related to how a construction boom in Angola following the civil war has excluded much of the local population, the work alludes to the unattainability of housing for many. Like a mirage, the impending threat of erosion to the structure's foundations only compounds its ephemerality.
Kiluanji Kia Henda
Concrete Affection - Zopo Lady, 2014
Single-channel video
12 minutes and 29 seconds
Edition of 5
Showing a modern-day Luanda transformed into a ghost metropolis emptied of its inhabitants, Concrete Affection - Zopo Lady (2014) presents a counter-image to the desert structures - though no less dystopian. Based on writer Ryszard Kapuscinski's description of a newly independent city abandoned by thousands of people, the film reimagines the mass withdrawal of mainly Portuguese and white Angolans in 1975. In Kapuscinski's words “The city seems light. After all it’s belongings and inhabitants have been removed, the concrete seems able to levitate”
Kiluanji Kia Henda
Structures of Survival (Kilometer 19, Namibe) I, 2022
Inkjet on fine art paper
Work: 72.58 x 110 cm (28.6 x 43.3 in.)
Edition of 5 + 1 AP
Kiluanji Kia Henda
Structures of Survival (Kilometer 19, Namibe) II, 2022
Inkjet on fine art paper
Work: 72.58 x 110 cm (28.6 x 43.3 in.)
Edition of 5 + 1 AP
Kiluanji Kia Henda
Structures of Survival (Kilometer 19, Namibe) III, 2022
Inkjet on fine art paper
Work: 72.58 x 110 cm (28.6 x 43.3 in.)
Edition of 5 + 1 AP
Kiluanji Kia Henda (b. 1979, Luanda, Angola) employs a surprising sense of humour in his work, which often homes in on themes of identity, politics, and perceptions of post-colonialism and modernism in Africa. Kia Henda brings a critical edge to his multidisciplinary practice, which incorporates photography, video, and performance.
Solo exhibitions include Memories of a Poisoned River, Natural History Museum / Jahmek Contemporary, Luanda (2023); The Sound is the Monument, Volt Projects, Bergen (2022); The Isle of Venus, Murate Art District, Florence (2021); Something Happened on the Way to Heaven, MAN Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro, Italy (2020); Homem Novo, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria (2013).
Group exhibitions include A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography, Tate Modern, London (2023); 14th Gwangju Biennial, Gwangju, South Korea (2023); Back to Earth, Serpentine Gallery, London (2022); Redefining Power/After Durer, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin (2021); Masculinities: Liberation through photography, Foto Museum, Antwerp (2021); China Africa: Crossing the Color Line, Center Pompidou, Paris (2020)
Collections include Hood Museum of Art, Hanover; Tate Modern, London; Fondazione di Venezia, Venice; Sindika Dokolo, African Collection of Contemporary Art, Luanda; Ellipse Foundation, Lisbon; Metropolitana di Napoli, Naples; PLMJ Foundation, Lisbon; Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Kadist Foundation, Paris/San Francisco.