Writing Art History Since 2002

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The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has also the oldest museum photography collection in the world. In 2011 it will showcase the work of 17 South African photographers

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Pieter Hugo, Pieter and Maryna Vermuelen with Timana Phosiwa, 2006
“The exhibition focuses on figural photography depicting people within their individual, family and community lives, practicing religious customs, observing social rituals, wearing street fashion or existing on the fringes of society. All the photographers question what it is to be human in South Africa at this time.”
In 2008 Garb curated a group exhibition of South African art at London’s Haunch of Venison Gallery. Titled Land Marks / Home Lands: Contemporary Art from South Africa, the exhibition offered an uneven review of South African cultural production, focussing in particular on how the “politics of race and place have left their mark upon the landscape through
monuments, structures, maps and borders”. The line-up included William Kentridge, David Goldblatt and Nicholas Hlobo, amongst others.
Figures and Fiction: Contemporary South African Photography will be accompanied by a book published by Steidl and the V&A featuring 250 illustrations, a 23,000 word essay by Garb, interviews with the 17 artists featured in the exhibition, as well as a round table discussion gathering South African writers, philosophers and educators discussing South African art under the umbrella title ‘Shooting from the South’.
Figures and Fiction: Contemporary South African Photography opens on April 12, 2011 and runs until July 17 in the Porter Gallery

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