Autograph ABP presents Santu Mofokeng at Rivington Place

14th January- 28th February
Santu Mofokeng, solo exhibition Rivington Place.

‘One of the most important photographers of his generation’ - Simon Njami

Santu Mofokeng produces photographs that refuse to be overtly political, but nonetheless contain a fundamental political dimension. He seeks a broader story about black life in which people are portrayed as more than just urban activists locked into violence.

His landscapes are spaces invested with public memory and spirituality, and he investigates them in relation to ownership, ecological impact and power. His Bloemhof Portfolio tells of the lives of rural tenant farmers, and he continues to photograph industrial sites around the world, such as opencast mines, and dams. Chasing Shadows is a documentation of religious ceremonies in caves, public parks or urban waste ground. It includes photographs taken at the Motouleng Caves in the Free State, some of which feature his brother Ishmael shortly before his death from Aids.

At a time when there was a public debate in South Africa about the fate of sites such as Robben Island, Mofokeng’s interest in places invested with meaning led him to investigate his and other countries’ monuments and sites of public memory. He travelled to British concentration camp sites in South Africa, to Namibia where the Herero were nearly wiped out under German colonialists, to Ravensbruck, Auschwitz, Nagasaki, Hanoi and other sites of atrocity.



FREE PUBLIC EVENTS

Saturday 17 January 3 - 4pm
Gallery tour by Santu Mofokeng of his exhibition.

Thursday 22 January 6.30 – 7.30pm
Gallery tour by George Shire, Zimbabwean political analyst and cultural critic.

Thursday 29 January 6.30-7.30pm
Gallery tour by Admas Habteslasie, whose ongoing documentation of Eritrea, Limbo, has won him solo exhibitions in both London and the USA.

Thursday 5th February 5pm – late
In-house café Lati Ri will be serving South African music, food and drink, and screening Tsotsi, the first S.A. film to win an Oscar. Film starts 7pm.

Saturday 14 February 3 - 4pm
Gallery tour by Vanley Burke, who has been documenting black communities in the Midlands since 1967, and visiting South Africa since 1996.

Saturday 21 February 3 - 4pm
Gallery tour by Autograph ABP’s Senior Curator, David A Bailey

Thursday 26th February 6.30-7.30pm
Gallery tour by Autograph ABP’s Curator, Indra Khanna

Other events to be confirmed. Please visit www.rivingtonplace.org for updates.