giclée print on archival cotton rag paper

Artwork date: 1984
Signature details: signed and dated 4/4/84 bottom right
Exhibited: Examples from the edition were exhibited in:
Goodman Gallery, London, ‘Johannesburg: 1948 – 2018’, 8 July to 25 August 2020.
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, ‘Joburg’, 26 April to 24 May 2008.
Literature: Goldblatt, D. (1998). ‘South Africa: Structures of Things Then’. Cape Town: Oxford University Press Southern Africa, illustrated on p.74.

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image size: 45.5 x 36.5 cm; framed size: 69.5 x 60 x 1.5 cm

Provenance:

Private collection, Cape Town.

Here lived the men who serviced and guarded this building in the centre of the city. Flat-cleaners and night-watchmen were invariably migrant workers with their homes and families in one of the 'homelands'. A man might work for six months or a year and then go home for two or three months, Usually a relative or a friend from the same village would hold his job for him during his absence.

The government tried to whiten the cities by reducing concentrations of Blacks living in what came to be known as 'locations in the sky'. A 1996 ruling that stipulated that 'the only Africans who may stay overnight in blocks of flats in White are one boiler attendant, one watchman, one servant per five flats, and in compassionate cases one extra servant per ten flats.' Some 10 000 people were forced out of Hillbrow and central Johannesburg to single sex hostels and Alexandra Township, in pursuance of these rulings. – David Goldblatt

^{Goldblatt, D. (1998). 'South Africa: The Structure of Things Then', Cape Town: Oxford University Press, p.196.}

COLLECTOR'S NOTE

This image was selected by Brooklyn Museum Curator of Photography, Drew Sawyer as one of the top photographic works presented at Frieze, New York 2023.

An example from the edition forms part of the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum Collection, London.

COLLECTIONS

The artist is represented in numerous local and international collections, notably:
MoMA, New York, USA.; Tate Modern, London, UK.; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France.; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France; The French National Art Collection, France.; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.; The Art Gallery of Western Australia.; Huis Marseilles, Amsterdam, Netherlands.; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.; Fotomuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland.; Hasselblad Collection, Sweden.; Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, Germany.; Art Collection Deutsche Borse, Frankfurt, Germany.; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, USA.; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, Austria.; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA.; National Gallery of Canada.; Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA.; Art Institute, Chicago, USA., Iziko, South African National Gallery, Cape Town.; Durban Art Gallery.; Johannesburg Art Gallery.; University of South Africa, Pretoria.; University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.; University of Cape Town.