RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
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Indictment of a society corroded by racial discrimination and injustice
A new exhibition demonstrates why photographer David Goldblatt became an iconic documentarist of the apartheid system, says JOHN GREEN
ICONIC: Baby with child-minders and dogs in Hillbrow park, 1972 and young man at home, Soweto, 1972
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
SOUTH AFRICAN photographer David Goldblatt, who died in 2018, was not an activist in the usual understanding of the word and saw his work in terms of reflecting reality rather than as direct political engagement. Yet his photos leave the viewer in no doubt about where his sympathies lie.
Renowned for a lifetime of photography exploring his home country, Goldblatt produced an unparalleled body of work within the city of Johannesburg, where he lived for 50 years.
Aged 17, Goldblatt would hitchhike from Randfontein, the small mining town where he was born, into the city where he walked around until the next morning, talking to night watchmen and following his intuition. This process became the foundation of his practice.
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