Commotion, Johannesburg-Soweto Line

1986
Santu Mofokeng

Black and white photograph
38 x 58 cm

Completed over the course of a month in 1986, Train Church was his first publication and became legendary. The subject is the train that connects the township of Soweto with Johannesburg, a tiring and dangerous journey which black communities, kept far from their places of work, were subjected to under the laws of apartheid. Mornings and evenings, this journey became a moment of collective grace. Sermons and gospels united residents from different neighborhoods to the sounds of hands slapping walls and feet stomping floors. The photographer co-exists with his subjects in the train car, and the constricted space entails the use of a wide-angle lens and full, saturated composition. Rendered in raw black and white, Mofokeng’s images convey intense spiritual feeling.

Hangs

Collection : A Selection of African artworks

From 26 April 2017 to 4 September 2017

Santu Mofokeng began his career as an assistant in a photographic laboratory, he is today a recognized figure in the international photographic landscape.

First a street photographer, in 1985 he joined the Afrapix collective (1982-1991), a group of around forty people, blacks and whites, professionals and amateurs, who oppose the apartheid regime with a " wrestling photography ". Above clichés and reports, it is through his paper series that Mofokeng will develop an art that has become a landmark in South Africa's history.

In the same hang

"Remains of households in a children's game called onopopi, and the shells of incomplete houses in a housing scheme that stalled. Kwezinaledi, Lady Grey, Eastern Cape", 2006

David Goldblatt

"Incomplete houses, part of stalled municipal developpment of 1000 houses. The allocation was made in 1998, building started in 2003. Officials and a politician gave various reasons for the stalling o, 2006

David Goldblatt