David Goldblatt: In Boksburg - Hardcover

In boksburg offers a sober view of a bygone era of legislated white privilege... The photographs reveal that life for small-town, middle-class whites in South Africa was much as it was elsewhere, only with apartheid looming behind it.--Finbarr O'Reilly "The New York Times Lens Blog "

Goldblatt's trenchant account of 1970s-era, middle-class white privilege in the 1982 book In Boksburg is a sobering counterpoint to the politically inflected photojournalism of the time, in which incendiary racial conflicts portrayed South Africa in a state of endless crisis.--Ian Bourland "Aperture Magazine "

In Boksburg was published in 1982 as one of the earlier photobooks made in South Africa. David Goldblatt, himself from a white back - ground and a critical observer of the dynamics inherent in the racist set-up of his native country, had become interested in capturing the “wholly uneventful flow of commonplace, orderly life” of the white population around him. Boksburg, a legally white-only town on the eastern periphery of Johannesburg which was heavily dependent on black labor, seemed to fit best his purposes, and between 1979 and 1980 he recorded everyday scenes in the streets, shops, clubs, churches, the municipality, homes, gardens and cemetery, choosing a fly-on-the-wall approach. Despite its nuanced complexity, the essay was rejected by Optima magazine which had commissioned it. Several photographs have been added to this Steidl edition, and it contains a new essay by Sean O’Toole, providing keen insight into the history of the book and the story behind the photographs and their subjects.