David Goldblatt's 'South African' Photographs Exhibit Opens at Jewish Museum, 5/1

On May 4, The Jewish Museum will present a conversation with photographer David Goldblatt and Joseph Lelyveld, former New York Times executive editor and correspondent in South Africa. During the 6:30 pm event, the two will discuss the new exhibition, 'South African Photographs: David Goldblatt', on view at the Museum from May 1 through September 19, 2010.

'South African Photographs: David Goldblatt', the largest New York City exhibition of the photographer's work since 2001, presents 150 black-and-white silver gelatin prints taken between 1948 and 2009, focusing on South Africa's human landscape in the apartheid and post-apartheid eras. Goldblatt has not documented major political events or horrifying incidents of violence. Instead, he focuses on the details of daily life and the world of ordinary people, a world where the apartheid system penetrates every aspect of society. He is constantly searching for the substance beneath the surface of human situations.

David Goldblatt was born in 1930, the youngest of the three sons of Eli and Olga Goldblatt. His grandparents arrived in South Africa from Lithuania around 1893, having fled the persecution of Jews in the Baltic countries. David's paternal grandfather owned a general store in Randfontein, a gold-mining town some forty kilometers west of Johannesburg. Eli Goldblatt built the business into a respected men's clothing store and for some years David assisted with the running of the shop when his father's poor health necessitated it. But he was only biding his time. He had become interested in photography in high school, and after his father's death in 1962, he sold the business to devote all of his time to being a photographer. David Goldblatt's works are held in many collections, including the Johannesburg Art Gallery; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the French National Art Collection; and the Bibliothèque National de France. He has published several books, including On the Mines, with Nadine Gordimer (1973); Some Afrikaners Photographed (1975); In Boksburg (1982); Lifetimes: Under Apartheid, with Nadine Gordimer (1986); The Transported of KwaNdebele with Brenda Goldblatt and Phillip van Niekerk (1989); South Africa: The Structure of Things Then (1998); Particulars (2003); Intersections (2005); Some Afrikaners Revisited (2007); and Intersections Intersected (2008).

Joseph Lelyveld is a former correspondent and editor of The New York Times, serving as executive editor from 1994 to 2001 and again in 2003. He worked with David Goldblatt on tours in South Africa in 1965-1966 and 1980-1983. His book, Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White won a Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1986. Lelyveld is the author of a family memoir, Omaha Blues: A Memory Loop (2005). His new book, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India, will be published by Knopf in 2011.

Admired for its exhibitions and educational programs that inspire people of all backgrounds, The Jewish Museum is the preeminent United States institution exploring the intersection of 4,000 years of art and Jewish culture. The Jewish Museum was established in 1904, when Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated 26 ceremonial art objects to The Jewish Theological Seminary of America as the core of a museum collection. Today, the Museum maintains an important collection of 26,000 objects-paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, archaeological artifacts, ceremonial objects, and broadcast media.

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