Modern and Contemporary Art: Evening Sale

Live Virtual Auction, 24 June 2025

Modern and Contemporary Art: Evening Sale

Current Bid

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Lot 260
  • David Goldblatt; Fifteen-year-old Lawrence Matjee after his assault and detention by the Security Police, Khotso House, De Villiers Street
  • David Goldblatt; Fifteen-year-old Lawrence Matjee after his assault and detention by the Security Police, Khotso House, De Villiers Street
  • David Goldblatt; Fifteen-year-old Lawrence Matjee after his assault and detention by the Security Police, Khotso House, De Villiers Street


Lot Estimate
ZAR 50 000 - 70 000
Current Bid
Starting at ZAR 48 000
Location
Cape Town
Shipping
Condition Report
May include additional detailed images
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About this Item

South African 1930-2018
Fifteen-year-old Lawrence Matjee after his assault and detention by the Security Police, Khotso House, De Villiers Street

signed and dated 25/10/85 on the reverse

silver gelatin print
image size: 18,5 by 17,5cm; 36 by 34,5 by 2,5cm including frame

Notes

Accompanied by the article: Osei Bonsu (2018) 'Another Landscape: 70 Years since apartheid became law in South Africa, David Goldblatt's photographs offers profound insight into what it means to bear witness', Frieze Magazine, issue no 195, pages 33-34, adhered to the reverse.

"In an image from 1985, for instance, a teenager looks just past the frame that Goldblatt has placed around him. His arms form a second frame. They are encased in white plaster and clasped between his knees. In a formal reading of this composition, these arms draw our eyes around the image and back to the boy's face, over and over. Though he looks calm, his face registers both alarm and exhaustion; urgency behind a veil of fear. In the years before apartheid was dismantled in 1994, and before Nelson Mandela ascended from being a political prisoner to the first black president of South Africa in the first election to allow black people the vote, violence was, of course, commonplace. Matjee's plaster-cast arms are the result of a police arrest, during which he was dragged by his feet from his home, his arms dislocated in the process."1

1. Pippa Milne (2019) Vault, David Goldblatt Review, 24 (Nov 2018 - Jan 2019), online, https://vaultmagazine.com/ISS24/features/goldblatt_feature.php, accessed 16 January 2025.

Exhibited

The Jewish Museum, New York, South African Photographs, 2 May to 19 September 2010, another example exhibited.

The South African Jewish Museum, Cape Town, Kith, Kin and Khaya: South African Photographs, 31 October 2010 to 11 February 2011, another example exhibited.

Standard Bank Gallery and Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, David Goldblatt:The Pursuit of Values, 21 October to 5 December 2015, another example exhibited.

Centre Pompidou, Paris, David Goldblatt Retrospective Exhibition, 21 February to 13 May 2018, another example exhibited.

Literature

Goodman Gallery (2010) David Goldblatt: Kith, Kin and Khaya - South African Photographs, exhibition catalogue, Cape Town: Goodman Editions, another example illustrated on page 179.

The Standard Bank of South Africa and The Goodman Gallery (2015) David Goldblatt: The Pursuit of Values, exhibition catalogue, Johannesburg: The Standard Bank of South Africa and The Goodman Gallery, another example illustrated on page 91.

Jonathan Cane (2015) Aperture Archive, David Goldblatt Interview with Jonathan Cane, online, https://archive.aperture.org/article/2015/3/3/david-goldblatt, accessed 22 January 2025, another example illustrated.

Centre Pompidou (2018) David Goldblatt, exhibition catalogue, Paris: Centre Pompidou, another example illustrated on page 26.

Osei Bonsu (2018) 'Another Landscape: 70 Years since apartheid became law in South Africa, David Goldblatt's photographs offers profound insight into what it means to bear witness', Frieze Magazine, online, https://www.frieze.com/article/david-goldblatts-photographs-and-what-it-means-bear-witness, accessed 5 February 2025.

Provenance

Gifted by the artist to the current owner.

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