Parting

shots:

Fragments

of

an

unforgotten

community

South African photographer David Goldblatt (1930–2018) is among the most important visual chroniclers of South Africa. Born in Randfontein to Jewish-Lithuanian immigrant parents, he trained initially in commerce but turned full-time to photography in 1963. Over an extraordinary career spanning six decades, Goldblatt’s work probed the architecture, landscapes and social fabric of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa — not only the grand dramas of political struggle, but the quieter realities of everyday life, built spaces, and displaced communities.

The Goodman Gallery in Joburg is hosting Goldblatt’s posthumous book, Fragments of Fietas, a potent and haunting visual document of one of Joburg’s most maligned suburbs and of the people who lived there.