The Pursuit of Values by David Goldblatt Standard Bank Art Gallery, Johannesburg | 21 October – 5 December 2015 Review by Khehla Chepape Makgato

The Pursuit of Values is a reflective and incisive exhibition by David Goldblatt, one of South Africa’s most distinguished photographers, known internationally for his socio-political documentation of the country’s complex realities. Curated by Neil Dundas, senior curator at Goodman Gallery, the exhibition traces Goldblatt’s remarkable career spanning over seven decades. Goldblatt began taking photographs in 1948—the same year Dr D.F. Malan came into office and formally introduced apartheid as state policy. This historic moment, a turning point in South African life, propelled the young Goldblatt into a lifelong engagement with documenting the injustices of the apartheid system. 

 This retrospective exhibition encapsulates, through Goldblatt’s discerning lens, the beauty and brutality, the triumphs and trials, and the continuities and contradictions between apartheid and democracy. It reveals the social and economic inequalities that persist between races, the tensions between rural and urban spaces, and the fraught relationship between people and land. His black-and-white photographs illuminate the texture of South African life with nuance and empathy. As Paul Weinberg observed, “Photography has been a means for him to be fully a South African.” Goldblatt’s practice, indeed, is both a mirror and a critique of the nation he loved.

 

Children on the border between Fietas and Mayfair, Johannesburg (3_0795) David Goldblatt Children on the border between Fietas and Mayfair, Johannesburg (3_0795), c. 1949 Silver gelatin photograph on fibre-based paper approx. 30 x 40cm 

The exhibition spans two floors: the lower level provides an intimate documentary overview of Goldblatt and his circle, including Santu Mofokeng and Paul Weinberg, while the upper floor presents seven decades of photographic work. A particularly significant inclusion is his series on Consolidated Main Reef Mines juxtaposed with images of the Lonmin Platinum Mines—the infamous koppie at Marikana, where mineworkers “were shot with murderous intent,” as noted in the accompanying text. These works speak powerfully to the economic foundations of South Africa, mining and agriculture, and their enduring legacies of exploitation and inequality.

In light of the exhibition’s title, The Pursuit of Values, one is compelled to ask: What values are being pursued? In conversation with Thembinkosi Goniwe during the 2013 FNB Joburg Art Fair, Goldblatt remarked: “When we choose to make a public declaration, we are in some way consolidating a whole lot of values of the things we have expressed.” His images embody this consolidation; a visual ethics of observation, patience, and compassion. 

His 1975 series from the Transkei, for example, captures both the daily life and quiet dignity of Xhosa people, giving voice to their struggles and celebrating their resilience through farming and communal life. South African fashion and identity are vividly represented in his portraits: two young men wrapped in blankets reminiscent of Basotho attire, perhaps awaiting recruitment to the mines, and the elegant Agricultural Inspector, Cofimvaba, Transkei (1975), a handsome figure in a fedora and khaki trousers. In another deeply evocative image, two Xhosa women carry what appears to be a coffin, a potent visual metaphor of endurance and sacrifice. 

The image echoes the Sepedi proverb Mosadi o tshwara thipa ka bogaleng (A woman holds the knife by its sharp edge), reflecting the courage and compassion of women who held families together amid apartheid’s dislocations. Goldblatt’s photography resonates with the words of Drum journalist William Bloke Modisane, who wrote in Blame Me on History: “It is impossible to be a South African and without some shade of race attitudes.” Goldblatt confronted these contradictions with honesty, documenting lives “grown out of the gutters of the slums,” shaped by oppression yet marked by dignity and endurance. His work bridges the personal and the professional, emerging both from private conviction and public commission. It aligns, consciously or not, with the spirit of the Freedom Charter and the Constitution, striving to dismantle barriers of race and class. Three photographs displayed as a triptych on the upper floor demand immediate attention. 

The central image captures members of the Constitutional Assembly on the steps of the Senate House, beaming after adopting the Constitution in 1996. On either side are contrasting images: one of Freedom Square in Kliptown, redeveloped at great cost without consultation with local residents, and another of nearby squatter camps. Together, these images expose the paradoxes of liberation—the lofty ideals of equality set against the persistent realities of poverty and exclusion. Goldblatt’s work transcends politics, extending into the realms of economics, culture, and moral philosophy. His lens remains steadfastly critical yet profoundly humane. As Joseph Lelyveld, former executive editor of The New York Times, observed: “In a Goldblatt image, there’s seldom a crowd. These are not pictures shot from the hip… they endure because they capture more than the conditions of South Africa at a particular time.” Indeed, Goldblatt’s photographs reveal the human condition—its solitude, endurance, and quiet dignity. In works like Going to Work: 3:30am, Wolwekraal–Marabastad Bus, Goldblatt depicts workers’ predawn journeys, evoking both endurance and systemic injustice. Such images reveal the harsh rhythms of labour and inequality that continue to shape black lives under democracy. Through these scenes, he exposes the failures of infrastructure and the burden of “black tax,” which, long before SARS takes its share, consumes meagre salaries and dreams alike.

 Ultimately, The Pursuit of Values stands as a coherent, deeply felt body of work—an inquiry into ethics, humanity, and belonging. As Goniwe aptly noted, Goldblatt’s photographs move “between politics and aesthetics.” They are politicised yet never didactic, composed with an “emotion of sympathy uniting all.” His pursuit of formal perfection becomes a moral act: a search for meaning amid fracture. The Pursuit of Values affirms David Goldblatt not only as a chronicler of South Africa’s landscape and architecture but as a custodian of its conscience. 

Khehla Chepape Makgato is a Johannesburg-based independent artist and arts writer contributing regularly to ART AFRICA and The Journalist online publications. He works at Assemblage Studios and The MediaShop, and is the founder of Samanthole Creative Projects & Workshop, a community-based organisation focusing on art and literacy youth programmes.