David Goldblatt, Gateway to the Jewish cemetery, Sutherland, Western Cape (2007)
From the series Regarding Intersections, digital print on 100% cotton rag paper,
98 x 124, edition 2/10, signed in pencil: David Goldblatt. From the VGSJM collections.

David Goldblatt (born in 1930 in Randfontein, South Africa) is one of the most famous South African photographers. World-renowned artist is a second generation Litvak – photographer‘s grandparents were born in Papilė, a small Samogitian town. The main focus of his creative work is complex human life during the apartheid regime. D. Goldblatt began to photograph in 1948, and this was the beginning of his influential and nuanced creative path. Over the years Goldblatt was exploring the mining industry, class and racial vulnerability of the whites, general nature of modernisation in South Africa, structures and human inscriptions on them, historical „notes” in the landscape. The photographer published several books and albums, reflecting social and political changes in the country since 1948 until the collapse of apartheid in 1994.

The initial idea of the series Regarding Intersections was to photograph all 122 South African points of intersection of longitude and latitude. However, later he realised that more interesting kinds of intersections exist. These are intersections of ideas, values, histories, conflicts, congruencies, fears, joys and aspirations, and the land in which and often –because of which – things happen.

The photograph Gateway to the Jewish cemetery was taken in Sutherland, in the cemetery with 11 Jewish graves. In 1904 there were 1626 Coloureds and 2829 Whites (including 32 Jews) in the town, in 1991 – 2726 Coloureds, 870 Whites and no Jews. After being in storage for 40 years, the gate was re-erected in 1999.

Written by Karina Simonson, Museologist at the History Research Department