ORAL HISTORY ARCHIVE:
DAVID GOLDBLATT
Interviewed by Mark Durden
Location: Modern Art, Oxford
Date: January 2003
Portrait by Warren van Rensburg
Chapter 5:
(Chapter 5 of 6, Running Time: 00:09:26)
Chapter Index: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
Ciskei National Monument, Ntaba kaNoda, Ciskei, 10 July 1990.
Memorial to those killed by police in the Langa Massacre, 21 March 1985, and to others who died during the struggle; vandalized in 1987 by Black vigilantes funded by Military Intelligence. Kwanabuhle Cemetery, Uitenhage, Cape, 15 September 1990.
Chapter 5 Synopsis:
- In early '60s photographs Churches in 'Houses of God' series.
- 1983 - retrospective exhibtion in Cape Town.
- Spends several days photographing small holiday resort outside Cape Town.
- Begins to explore intimate connections between Afrikaners and their architecture.
- Decides to photograph South African structures as expressions of value.
- October 1983 - buys camper van to travel South Africa photographing structures.
- Project continues off and on for 10 years - 1983 to 1993.
- Political history of Afrikaner volk manifest in their Church architecture.
- Prior to mid 19th century Afrikaner Churches architecturally unremarkable.
- Following the liberation of the Church - architecture becomes very baroque.
- Afrikaner spirit broken by Boer War and Depression of 1920s and '30s.
- Broederbond organisation attempts to revive Afrikaner Nationalism.
- 1938-39 new church architecture emerges - triumphant, modernist expressions of Nationalism.
- Following 'total onslaught' of 1970's - Church architecture withdraws within itself.
Ciskei National Monument, Ntaba kaNoda, Ciskei, 10 July 1990.
Memorial to those killed by police in the Langa Massacre, 21 March 1985, and to others who died during the struggle; vandalized in 1987 by Black vigilantes funded by Military Intelligence. Kwanabuhle Cemetery, Uitenhage, Cape, 15 September 1990.
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