Clive
van
den
Berg
and
David
Goldblatt
Excavations

New

York

18 Jan - 02 Mar 2024

Excavations places work by South African artists Clive van den Berg and the late David Goldblatt in conversation to encourage a deeper understanding of the intricate connections between the land and its structures as well as the emotional resonance of ideologies embedded within the South African terrain.

Clive van den Berg

Aquifer III (Deluge), 2023

Clive van den Berg

Landscape Marked III, 2023

Clive van den Berg

Landscape Horizon V, 2023

Clive van den Berg

Landscape Event XI, 2023

Clive van den Berg

Landscape Event XIII, 2023

David Goldblatt

Novice mineworker from the Transkei, in the Fanakolo school, Hartebeesfontein Gold Mine, Welkom , 1972

David Goldblatt

Roman Catholic Church built 1985, designed by a Priest, an Italian, built by a member of the community. Alheit Lokasie, Northern Cape. 12 December 1987 , 1987

David Goldblatt

The Apostolic Multiracial Church in Zion of SA. Crossroads, Cape Town. 11 October 1984 , 1984

David Goldblatt

Flushing Meadows and lighting masts, Site B, Khayelitsha, Cape Town, 11 October 1987 Structures , 1987

David Goldblatt

Assegais, shield, and 23-metre-high cross of the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk in Afrika, (Dutch Reformed Mission Church to Africans), which stands above Dingane's destroyed capital, uMgungundlovu. The church was burnt down in 1985; Dinganestad, Natal. 1989 , 1989

David Goldblatt

Dutch Reformed Church. Lothair, Transvaal. 8 January 1984 , 1984

David Goldblatt

Apostolic Faith Mission [AGS] Birchleigh, Kempton PArk. 28 December 1983 , 1983

David Goldblatt

Travellers from KwaNdebele buying weekly season tickets at the PUTCO bus depot in Marabastad, Pretoria , 1983

David Goldblatt

Location in the sky': the servants' quarters of Essanby house. Jeppe Street, Johannesburg. 4 April 1984 , 1984

David Goldblatt

South-east wing of a hostel for Black male workers erected during apartheid as part of a scheme to make Joburg city and suburbs white. Alexandra Township. 1 June 1988 , 1988

David Goldblatt

The city from the South-West, c.1960's

David Goldblatt

Miners going home to Nyassaland after serving their twelve-month contract on the gold mines, Mayfair railway station, Johannesburg. December 1952 , 1952

Clive van den Berg

Squall, 2022

David Goldblatt

Racially Segregated beach areas and the boundary between them. Strand, Western Cape. 16 April 1983 , 1983

David Goldblatt

5:40 am: after arrival at the Marabastad terminal in Pretoria, many of the passengers from the Wolwekraal bus join others to line up for local buses that will take them to work in the suburbs and industrial areas of the city. Some will travel for another hour. , 1983

David Goldblatt

The monument at left celebrates the fifth anniversary of the Republic of South Africa. The one at right is to J G Strijdom, militant protagonist of White supremacy and of an Afrikaner republic, who died in 1958. At rear is the headquarters building of Volkskas (‘The People’s Bank’) founded in 1934 to mobilise Afrikaner capital and to break the monopoly of the ‘English’ banks. Pretoria, 25 April 1982. , 1982

David Goldblatt

Troyeville and Hillbrow. For Barney Simon. September 1974 , 1974

David Goldblatt

Revival meeting held in a tent, Randfontein, Transvaal (Gauteng) , 1966

David Goldblatt

Flushing Meadows and lighting masts, Site B, Khayelitsha, Cape Town, 11 October 1987 Structures , 1987

Clive van den Berg (b. 1956, Zambia) is an artist, curator and designer, who works on his own and in collaboration with colleagues in a collective called trace, whose primary activities are the development of public projects. He has had several solo exhibitions in South Africa, and his work is regularly
exhibited abroad.

His public projects have included the artworks for landmark Northern Cape Legislature and, since he has joined the trace team, museum projects for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Constitution Hill, freedom Park, the Workers Museum, The Holocaust and Genocide Centre and many other projects.

Van den Berg has much experience working on largescale institutional projects with teams representing diverse constituencies: urban planners and policy makers, architects, landscape designers, museum curators, historians, community liaison officials and representatives of local and national governments. In the Northern Cape, for example, where he worked with the Luis Ferreira da Silva architects, he pioneered a new strategy for integrating forms of the local
landscape and indigenous aesthetics into the overall building design, while also training local artisans as part of a skills transference project aimed at long-term sustainability. The result is a world-renowned and uniquely South African state edifice: a monument to the people of the Northern Cape.