Vitro Nasu

Via

David Goldblatt, ‘The salute of the banned African National Congress at the graves of four assassinated black community leaders’, Cradock, Eastern Cape, South Africa, 20 July, 1985, gelatin-silver print. Museum no. E.112-1992, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Art Net David Goldblatt

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(Cafe de Move On Johnnesburg 1964)

Marian Goodman Gallery- / Structures of Dominion & Democracy

(Guardian obit in 2018)
Art and Design – David Goldblatt (See more wonderful photos here)

David Goldblatt A Monument to Apartheid In Fietas

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Carvings for Sale on William Nicol Drive , 1999

Miriam Mazibuko waters the garden of her RDP house for which she waited eight years. It consists of one room. Her four children live with her in-laws. Extension 8, Far East Alexandra Township, 12 September 2006

Picture Protest – Frieze

Art Net David Goldblatt

David Goldblatt was South African photographer known for his uncompromising images of his country during apartheid and afterward. “I was very interested in the events that were taking place in the country as a citizen but, as a photographer, I’m not particularly interested, and I wasn’t then, in photographing the moment that something happens. I’m interested in the conditions that give rise to events,” he once explained. Born on November 29, 1930 in Randfontein, South Africa, he began photographing at an early age but his father’s illness required Goldblatt to run his family business while studying at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg. After selling the company in 1963, Goldblatt focused entirely on a career in photography. His involvement with various artistic circles in Johannesburg granted him access to a broad range of ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

Hugh
Via

As a warrior artist I like to feature art by other warrior artist or pieces of art that inspire warrior artists, and these two tracks by South African horn player Hugh Masekela are just that. Born April 4, 1939 music found Masekela at a young age. He took up trumpet at 14, and after quickly mastering it went on to lead several jazz ensembles. Growing up in apartheid South Africa, his music has always been a reflection and form of protest against the system that enslaved his people.

What Hugh Masekela meant to South Africa’s Freedom Fighter.

Many people have paid tribute to the musical genius of Hugh Masekela, known as the father of South African jazz. But he was not just known for his musicianship. The artist, who died on Tuesday at age 78, used his public platform to speak out against apartheid and substance abuse.

Malick Sidibé

NYtimes. Malick Sidibe Photographer known for social reportage in Mali dies at 80.

He attended Saturday-night parties at which young Malians, dressed to the nines, danced the twist, the rumba and the merengue to the Beatles, James Brown and Afro-Caribbean music. This was Mali’s youthquake, and Mr. Sidibé was its photographic witness.

“For me, photography is all about youth,” he told The Daily Telegraph of London in 2008. “It’s about a happy world full of joy, not some kid crying on a street corner or a sick person.”

Malick Sidibé: Portrait of the Artist as a Portraitist (Trailer)

See more photos from The Redlist

Photo by Leila Alaoui

Leila’s homepage – see her works.

Leila Alaoui,photographer, born 10 July 1982; died 18 January 2016

Alaoui was in Ouagadougou to work on a photography project for a women’s rights campaign called My Body My Rights for Amnesty International.

The Artist who was killed by jihadists and what she was trying to tell the world.

Family and colleagues pay tribute to a talented young photographer, shot dead by four heavily-armed thugs in an al-Qaeda attack on a popular café in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

The Moroccans

See a photo from Lebanon November 2013

Nadine

Via 21 Icons

Nadine Gordimer dies at 90.

Nadine’s wiki here

Via

The Guaridan Obit
Bearing witness, losing her life (Lens blogs NYtimes)

French photojournalist Camille Lepage killed in Central African Republic
French president orders immediate despatch of team to ‘shine light on circumstances of assassination’ of 26-year-old

Seeking justice for Camille Lepage

Camille Lepage (Portfolio)

Remembering Camille Lepage (New Yorker – slideshow )

Click to see large

2nd week of August 2013, South Sudanese professional and amateur models gather to be cast to participate in a catwalk at Festival for Fashion and Peace (FFPA) in Juba, South Sudan. © CamilleLepage_hanslucas.com

See more photos here –We Call it Fashion

Click to see large

See more photos here – Vanishing Young

“When a man has done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace. I believe I have made that effort and that is, therefore, why I will sleep for the eternity.” – Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela 1918-2013 – RIP.

Jacques Derrida visits Nelson Mandela’s jail cell (youtube)

~12 Mandela Quotes That Won’t Be In the Corporate Media Obituaries~ (Commondreams)

Zizek on Mandela

Coetzee on Nelson Mandela (with a great photo)

The Child is Not Dead by Ingrid Jonker

The child is not dead
The child lifts his fists against his mother
Who shouts Afrika ! shouts the breath
Of freedom and the veld
In the locations of the cordoned heart

The child lifts his fists against his father
in the march of the generations
who shouts Afrika ! shout the breath
of righteousness and blood
in the streets of his embattled pride

The child is not dead not at Langa nor at Nyanga
not at Orlando nor at Sharpeville
nor at the police station at Philippi
where he lies with a bullet through his brain

The child is the dark shadow of the soldiers
on guard with rifles Saracens and batons
the child is present at all assemblies and law-givings
the child peers through the windows of houses and into the hearts of mothers
this child who just wanted to play in the sun at Nyanga is everywhere
the child grown to a man treks through all Africa

the child grown into a giant journeys through the whole world
Without a pass

R.I.P Kofi Awoonor (Letter from Nairobi: “I Will Say It Before Death Comes” Posted by Teju Cole – NewYorker)

On Saturday, September 21st, the Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor was shot dead at Nairobi’s Westgate mall by terrorists. He was one of dozens of innocent victims of the massacre, for which the Somali group Shabaab claimed responsibility. I was about a mile away during the attack, giving a reading at the National Museum. During the reading, as word of the attack filtered in, people answered their phones and checked their messages, but, onstage and oblivious, I continued taking questions from the audience, including one about “the precariousness of life in Africa.”

Telegraph Obit

Book blogger Kinna Reads congratulated Professor Awoonor for his command of language, saying “He spoke Fanti as fluently as Ewe”. Professor Awoonor’s early poetry was heavily influenced by the dirge-singing traditions of his native Ewe tribe.

Nelson Mandela recited a poem by Ingrid Jonker.

Who is Ingrid Jonker? (see previous post)

Happy birthday Nelson Mandela 96 steadily improving..

Chinua Achebe and Mandela <>

Achebe – Literature was his weapon

“To me, being an intellectual doesn’t mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.”
― Chinua Achebe

“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

There was a country (via)

Novelist Chinua Achebe dies he was 82.

Nigerian author recognised for key role in developing African literature has died in Boston, where he was working as a professor

Novelist Poet in Pictures (slideshow)

The impatient idealist says: “Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.” But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.’ Chinua Achebe

Read his bio from his wiki.

Paris Review -Interview

Nigerian author Chinua Achebe talks about slavery,colonialism, Africa and the African diaspora. (youtube)

Bill Moyers’ interview (youtube)

Update: Achebe was a staunch partisan of the Palestine struggle and helped cultural institutions in Palestine. (via Ana Valdez)

Ingrid Jonker – was a South African poet. Although she wrote in Afrikaans, her poems have been widely translated into other languages. Jonker has reached iconic status in South Africa and is often called the South African Sylvia Plath, owing to the intensity of her work and the tragic course of her turbulent life.

See also African history online

Song of the Grave Digger see a photo of her on the beach and read her poem.

Black Butterflies is a Dutch film about the life of South-African poet Ingrid Jonker.

The film focused on her messy life and not enough on her early development as a poet.

Nelson Mandela recited a poem by Ingrid Jonker.

The Child is Not Dead

The child is not dead
The child lifts his fists against his mother
Who shouts Afrika ! shouts the breath
Of freedom and the veld
In the locations of the cordoned heart

The child lifts his fists against his father
in the march of the generations
who shouts Afrika ! shout the breath
of righteousness and blood
in the streets of his embattled pride

The child is not dead not at Langa nor at Nyanga
not at Orlando nor at Sharpeville
nor at the police station at Philippi
where he lies with a bullet through his brain

The child is the dark shadow of the soldiers
on guard with rifles Saracens and batons
the child is present at all assemblies and law-givings
the child peers through the windows of houses and into the hearts of mothers
this child who just wanted to play in the sun at Nyanga is everywhere
the child grown to a man treks through all Africa

the child grown into a giant journeys through the whole world
Without a pass

Robin Rhode
Born 1976 in Cape Town, South Africa
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Roger Ballen homepage

Interview with Roger Ballen (Lens culture)

Roger Ballen Shadow Chamber (Slightly Lucid)

Roger Ballen was born in New York City, New York, USA in 1950. He has lived in Johannesburg South Africa since the 1970s. Beginning by documenting the small dorps or villages of rural South Africa, Ballen’s photography moved on in the late 1980s and early 1990s to their inhabitants; through the late 1990s Ballen’s work progressed. By the mid 1990’s his subjects began to act where previously his pictures, however troubling, fell firmly into the category of documentary photography, his work then moved into the realms of fiction. His fifth book ‘Outland’ produced by Phaidon Press in 2001 was the result. (Wiki)