Introduction by Geoffrey Grundlingh

The South African Centre for Photography is proud to host the Third Cape Town Month of Photography. (MoP)

The South African Centre for Photography is hosting its third Cape Town Month of Photography ( MoP ). The event will open early February and run until the end of March 2005. As a partner in the Cape Town Festival (6 -26 March 2005) this event promises to be a visual and cultural feast.

Exhibitors this year range from many established and well-known South African photographers such as David Goldblatt, Jenny Altschuler, Andrew Tshabangu, Jürgen Schadeberg, Dale Yudelman and Jean Brundrit, to talented unknowns such as Kayo Fusejima and Antonia Steyn. Student participation ranges from group shows by leading educational institutions such as Michaelis School of Fine Art at UCT, City Varsity Multimedia College and Ruth Prowse School of Art, to workshop student bodies from The Market Photo workshop, Johannesburg, the Guga S'thebe Langa Community Centre and Sue Hillyard's Explorer Workshop.  

The official opening of the Month of Photography is at 6pm - Thursday 17th February at the B Block of Iziko at the Castle of Good Hope. It is the core show with 15 solo photographic shows by Julia Tiffin, Jenny Altschuler, Kayo Fusejima (Japanese), Zanele Muholi (Johannesburg based), Sarel Eloff, Kali van der Merwe, Zack Slabbert, Jessica Meyer (German), Jeff Barbee (American), Rima Geffen (American/S.African), Siona O'Connell, Dale Washkansky, Erin Hargreaves, Margaret Stone, Darryll Pienaar, and Antonia Steyn. In addition, a group show is hosted by the Johannesburg based Market Photo Workshop Women Photographers.

Another   group of shows opens on the 24th February at 'The Mall' (between Vida 'e caffé and the Labia in Rheede Street, Gardens). Here Johan Wilke, Barry White, Vincent Bezuidenthout, Isgak Stemmet, Tim Hopwood, Jan Verboom, Luc van der Walt, Brita Lomba, Charles Bryant, Jana von Hagan (Dutch), Anneke Laurie (Vaal Triangle), Jakob Doman (Vaal Triangle), The Michaelis UCT 3rd year show, the City Varsity Junior Show, the City Varsity Graduate show, Claire Mclnulty, Elliot Magwaza, Hughes Foulquier (French) and the Big Issue show with Valencia Maliwa, Kenneth Mzukwa and Nolmandle Maqungo. This is followed by the opening of H.Rautenbach's show in Club Opium in Somerset Road in Green Point at 9pm, which continues into a MOP RAVE.

On Monday evening 7th March, as part of both MOP and the Cape Town City Festival, an evening of 'Live Exhibitions' will be hosted where photographers will present their work at the Biocafe (32 Kloof Street). Here the photographers are expected to engage with the audience in a shared dialogue around the work presented.

Apart from a daily walkabouts which are scheduled every day from the 21st February through to 18 March, education workshops are being held for school groups led by Buzwe Taliwe of City Varsity and a workshop for the Guga S'thebe community centre photographers from Langa by a group of Mozambiquan photographers (including master photographer Ricardo Rangel)   See their show at at the Joao Ferreira Art Gallery. ( Iluminando Vidas curated by Bruno Z'Graggen and Grant Lee Neuenburg)

Some of the core exhibitions include David Goldblatt's Intersections at the Michael Stevenson Gallery from 7 February till 12 March 2005. These new colour photographs continue his exploration between the post apartheid South African landscape and its inhabitants. Within this body of work he also re-represents landscape by moving away from romanticized imagery in preference for a harsher and perhaps a more objective view. There is also a series that focuses on South African towns which includes a portrait series of 'municipal people' who are responsible for managing government legislation. The exhibition in an insightful view into the South African milieu in a time when histories are changing and representations become blurred, yet David Goldblatt pulls us back into sharp focus.

Zanele Muholi exhibition is a personal body of work at the Castle of Good Hope titled Visual Sexuality which runs from February 17 till 11 March. Her images deal with issues surrounding her own identity as a black lesbian. These sometime graphic images confront misperceptions about lesbian sex and the impact this ignorance has within the lesbian community. Muholi's images are controversial and tackle stereotypes and homophobia by allowing the viewer into personal an private moments. Her discerning imagery also questions the notion of an ideal beauty which refers back to the presentation and representation of femininity.

Dale Yudelman's career in photography has led him through two eras of South African history as well as across several continents. Exhibiting extensively both locally and internationally he is showing a selection of new work from his ongoing series 'Reality Bytes' at Joburg Bar, opening on 16 February. This work is thought provoking, imbued with story-telling innuendo, satirical humour and social commentary which challenges notions of documentary fact, and replaces it with the suggestion of an artist's right to poetical truth.

Jeff Barbee will also be exhibiting at Iziko B Block at the   Castle from 17 February until 11 March 2005. This is a powerful series of work that Barbee, an American citizen photographed while in Swaziland.   He images not only document the hardship that those suffering with HIV/AIDS have to overcome each day, but also reveals that in times of crisis humanity shimmers with moments of divinity. This series of work celebrates the courage and compassion of the human spirit. Rima Geffen's body of work titled Between Six and Twelve will also be displayed at the Castle from 17 February until 11 March. These images are ephemeral moments from childhood which creates an interesting tension. The medium of photography which records tangible reality is explored as a recording device and its adequacy in recording the real. Her images propose how this reality reacts when it is used to illustrate memory which is obscure and in constant metamorphosis.

The imagery therefore transcend their stasis within the moment of exposure and construction and become insightful inflections of a felt , but unknown history. Jenny Altschuler's exhibition, Selfsuspicion , also at   the castle, explores the relationship between the subject and the photographer. The question posed is 'whose story is this, the photographers or the subjects?' The balance of power between the object of fascination and the voyeur is challenged by the juxtaposition of images and by the verbal contexts they are placed in. In the series, People I have never met, Altschuler highlights one of the dynamics that occur in the act of photographing strangers. That of the disarming nature of the camera in the seduction of the object of fascination. People want to be seen, to be viewed, to be preserved for posterity. In these cases, the camera allows an immediate possibility of intimacy to occur without subject and photographer ever meeting. Mikheal Subotzky will be exhibiting his show Die Vier Hoeke at Pollsmoor Prison Admissions Centre in the cell where Nelson Mandella was held during his four year sentence at the prison. Subotzky not only documents   the prisoners at Pollsmoor but his use of the panoramic image in which he stitches photographs together to create a 180 degree view immerses the viewer within this environment. This innovative conceptual approach of using a landscape technique to document a prison investigates the notion of surveillance. The images also critique correctional services by exposing the inhumane living conditions that the prisoners are subjected to.

Sean Wilson will be exhibiting One Man's Waste is Another Man's Want at The Photographers Gallery from 21 February 2005 till 19 March 2005. These are colour images of the traders at the Milnerton Flea Market. The flea market is a place of mystery for Wilson as each object holds a story and a past. The flea market is a space which in an era of mass production seeks to recycle and rejuvenate objects with a past. Muzi Kuzwayo, also exhibiting at The Photographers Gallery will be showing his show If These Walls Could Talk from 23 February 2005 till 19 March 2005. This exhibition is of what was left from the Payneville township near Springs in Gaugteng which was vacated due to forced removals. Kuzwayo's silent images resonate from the muffled voices of the past. Claire Breukel and Tracy Gander are curators of a show at the Joao Ferreira Gallery from 15 February till 22 March 2005. This show titled Girl's Night Out and it is a thematic exhibition that undertakes the question of what it means to be a woman living within a South African context. The artists participating will use a variety of photo based techniques and they include; Bridget Baker, Lien Botha, Claire Breukel, Katherine Bull, Geeta Chagan, Arnold Erasmus, Tracy Gander, Dorothee Kreutzveld, Sara Nankin, Senzeni Marasela, Varenka Paschke, Claire Sarembock, Lance Slabbert, Penny Siopis and Sue Williamson. The Joao Ferreira Gallery will also be hosting the show Iluminado Vidas from the 2 March till the 26 March 2005. This exhibition showcases Mozambique Photography from 1950 - 2001 and was curated by Bruno Z'Graggen and Grant Lee Neuenburg.

The title means Shed Light on Life and this exhibition provides the viewer with a multi layered experience.   This is first extensive exhibition of contemporary Mozambican photography since the end of the civil war and therefore is forging an identity for Mozambique with all the diversity and contradictions and reaffirmations of a dynamic country.

The Bell Roberts Gallery will be hosting the group show Sweet Nothings from 9 February till 5 March 2005. The participating artists are; Svea Josephy, Jean Brundrit, Jillian Lochner, Dorothee Kreutzfeld and Sanell Aggenbach. The show centers around the theme of romance and how it has been depicted within the mass media. Romance has been sentimentalized and idealized whilst stereotyping gender roles within society. Pieter Badenhorst's new ongoing body of work 'Rugby vs Soccer ' is showing upstairs at the same venue. Jennifer Lovemore-Reed will be exhibiting at the Bell Roberts Gallery from 8 March till 14 March 2005.

This exhibition titled 45 Minutes as Object includes a photographic and a video component. The images explore the concept of two dimensional representation. Lovemore-Reed   has manipulated the photographs so that they reference the original three dimensional space therefore exploring how a two dimensional image articulates three dimensional space. Rodger Bosch, Karin Retief, Garth Stead and Eric Miller have organized an exhibition of young photographers work titled Identity that will be shown at the Red Cross Children's Hospital. This exhibition is a result of a collaboration between the Iconimage Photography School working from Blackheath Senior School and a school in Appleton Wisconsin USA.

The show explores the notions of personal, group and national identity in a contemporary world. These are just a few of the exhibitions and what becomes evident is that within an historically isolated arena, the Cape Town Month of Photography has brought the wealth of   Southern African photographic talent together in one spectacular event . MoP has also succeeded in bringing an international flavour to the biennial.  Apart from our 2002 African exhibitions, we also hosted exhibitions from Finland, Italy, France, the USA, and the United Kingdom. MoP's primary aim however is to seek out, celebrate and promote the wealth of Southern African photographic expertise to the world at large.