The 1994 South African election under universal suffrage marked the end of a long period of struggle against apartheid. It has only been 14 years since the country shifted to democracy, but already much has changed within the South African landscape-not just for the country itself, but also for the artists portraying it.
Then & Now: Eight South African Photographers captures the changing tide of South Africa and beyond, before and after this monumental transition. It is a powerful collection of 160 photographs from the eight artists, who each contributed 20 prints, 10 made under apartheid and 10 post-democracy.
This exhibit is the vision of South African photographer and Paul Weinberg, who previously taught photography in the Center for Documentary Studies and is now the Curator at the Centre for Curating the Archive at the University of Cape Town.
Weinberg was one of the founding members of Afrapix, a South African collective photo agency, back in 1982. For nine years, the artists worked to capture the struggles of life in South Africa. Now, Weinberg wants to reunite its members through this exhibit.
Karen Glynn, the Visual Materials Archivist for the Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library, worked with Weinberg to bring Then & Now to Duke's campus. Before being showcased here, it premiered in Grahamstown, South Africa in Sept. 2007.
Glynn feels the exhibit not only brings together a great body of work, but also documents the diverse range of interests present in each photographer's works.
"[Weinberg] wanted to pull their body of work together so that for the first time, in one retrospective, [he can] show what these people had done as a group and how the lives of the photographers have changed post-apartheid because they are no longer struggle photographers," Glynn said. "You can see how they moved out with freedom to explore different voices and different expressions."
The contributing artists apply this new freedom to their separate interests, producing work that is startling and aesthetically powerful. For photographer Gisele Wulfsohn, the photos represent an outlet to examine the life of HIV/AIDS victims by way of close-up portraits. Similarly intimate, Cedric Nunn conveys the struggle of racial identity through the high contrast of black-and-white photography. In contrast, some of the artists chose to explore the beauty present during that period instead. Weinberg, for example, highlights the spirituality of South Africa in lively photos of gay cabaret and ritualistic dances.
Besides just showcasing the diversity of perspective in South Africa, the artists shed light on the importance of documentary photographers themselves.
"It's not that we don't know the story, but it's being told by South African photographers who lived that story," said Donna Zapt, Director of the Graduate Liberal Studies Program. "I see the difference because they are photographing their homes. There's a sense of being alive, on the ground. [It is a] poignant view of life... that we didn't see in the same way from the photographs that were coming through from the large news agencies."
Although it is easy to assume that life in South Africa has improved vastly, in many cases this doesn't hold true. As Weinberg himself stated in his introduction to the exhibit, the artists sought to "understand South Africa's changes, contradictions and complexities, both as a community and as individuals."
Within the photos, there still lies the paradox where then and now overlap, where black and white are still stratified and where development is not matched by increased quality of living. As viewers take a closer look into the exhibit, it is important to internalize the photographs not just for their beauty, but also for the larger context that the images present.
Then & Now is currently showing at the Special Collections Gallery, the Graduate Liberal Studies House, Divinity School Library and the Allen Building. The Center for Documentary Studies exhibit will open on April 18. For schedule closings, refer to http://library.duke.edu/exhibits/thenandnow/.
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