Jump to content

Santu Mofokeng

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lugnuts (talk | contribs) at 17:13, 28 January 2020 (Adding local short description: "South African photographer", overriding Wikidata description "South African photographer" (Shortdesc helper)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Santu Mofokeng (1956 – January 26, 2020) was a South African news and documentary photographer[1] who worked under the alias Mofokengâ. Mofokeng was a member of the Afrapix collective and won a Prince Claus Award.[2]

Career

Mofokeng was born in 1956 in Soweto, Johannesburg. While still a teenager, he began his career as a street photographer, went on to work as an assistant in a darkroom, and then he became a news photographer. Subsequently, he joined the collective Afrapix; he worked under the alias Mofokengâ. Initially he documented mainly the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.[2]

Mofokeng was known to be able to rearrange conventional subjection in a photographic presentation with a spiritual dimension; an example of this is Chasing Shadows from 1997.[citation needed] After starting off with street and news photography, he specialized in landscapes. In his images he presented them in relation to ownership, power, ecological effects and memory, but avoided an open political expression. His work showed his deep concern for the condition of the (biophysical) environment at the beginning of the 21st century.[3][4][5]

At his exhibition Let's Talk in 2010, he explained that the essence is not what you see in these photographs, but what you don't see (but feel).[6]

On January 26th, 2020, according to a family statement, Mofokeng died on Sunday in the presence of his loving family.

Publications with contributions by Mofokeng

  • Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography. Göttingen: Steidl; London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2011. ISBN 9783869302669; ISBN 9783869303062. Photographs by Jodi Bieber, Kudzanai Chiurai, Hasan and Husain Essop, David Goldblatt, Pieter Hugo, Terry Kurgan, Sabelo Mlangeni, Santu Mofokeng, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Zanele Muholi, Jo Ractliffe, Berni Searle, Mikhael Subotzky, Guy Tillim, Nontsikelelo Veleko, Graeme Williams, and Roelof van Wyk.

Solo exhibitions

Awards

References

  1. ^ Gevisser, Mark (23 April 2011). "Figures & Fictions at the V&A". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 28 February 2017.
  2. ^ a b c Prince Claus Fund (2009) biography
  3. ^ Luirink, Bart (10 April 2010) blog, ZAM Africa Magazine (in Dutch)
  4. ^ Cargo Collective, biography
  5. ^ Cargo Collective, Chasing Shadows
  6. ^ Teeffelen, Walter van (2010) biography (in Dutch)
  7. ^ De Buren, hasing Shadows. Santu Mofokeng, Thirty Years of Photographic Essays (in Dutch)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Santu_Mofokeng&oldid=938019041"