This selection of photographs made using alternative processes and techniques was drawn from the booths at Paris Photo 2023. For further background on how and why this “collection” was formed, and the structure of the resulting slideshow, visit the introductory page (here). This collection consists of 20 works featuring alternative processes and techniques made between roughly 1930 and the present. There were so many worthy options for inclusion in this collection that another 10 or even 20 works could easily been added without sacrificing much in the way of quality, but the curatorial limits of this exercise were fixed in ... Read more at Collector Daily.

When the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (or AIPAD for short) announced last year that it was moving its annual art fair from its traditional stately home at the Park Avenue Armory to the larger and more contemporary art friendly Pier 94, many wondered about just what might happen. Was the venue too big for AIPAD? Would photo people travel to the piers? And could AIPAD temper its internal squabbling and institutional resistance to change, and pull off a dramatic jump to the art fair major leagues? Just one day into the fair, it is too early to accurately gauge attendance figures ... Read more at Collector Daily.

JTF (just the facts): A large group show containing more than 500 photographs/artworks by roughly 70 photographers/artists, variously framed and matted, and hung against white, grey, and dark grey walls throughout both floors of the museum. By my likely inaccurate count, there were 509 individual photographs/artworks, 53 books/magazines/other ephemera in glass cases, 19 videos/films/slideshows, and 5 touch screens for further study. For those familiar with the layout of the museum, many of the rooms have been broken up by interior wall dividers, effectively doubling the available display space. The show generally covers the period from the late 1940s to the mid 1990s, with ... Read more at Collector Daily.

JTF (just the facts): A large group show containing more than 500 photographs/artworks by roughly 70 photographers/artists, variously framed and matted, and hung against white, grey, and dark grey walls throughout both floors of the museum. By my likely inaccurate count, there were 509 individual photographs/artworks, 53 books/magazines/other ephemera in glass cases, 19 videos/films/slideshows, and 5 touch screens for further study. For those familiar with the layout of the museum, many of the rooms have been broken up by interior wall dividers, effectively doubling the available display space. The show generally covers the period from the late 1940s to the mid 1990s, with a small amount of older material as introductory background. The exhibit was curated by Okwui Enwezor and Rory Bester. (Installation shots at right © International Center of Photography, 2012. Photographs by John Berens and Benjamin Jarosch.)

The following photographers/artists have been included in the exhibit. The size and scope of this exhibit made tracking the size, date, process and other details of every print prohibitively time consuming. But the list itself is still noteworthy as reference:

Paul Alberts
Jane Alexander
Joe Alfers
Omar Badsha
Roger Ballen
Jodi Bieber
Robert Botha
Margaret Bourke-White
Geoff Bridgett
Andrew Browns
Kevin Carter
Ernest Cole
A.M. Duggan-Cronin
Jillian Edelstein
Christian Gbagbo
David Goldblatt
Bob Gosani
Paul Grendon
Hans Haacke
George Hallett
Gavin Jantjes
Tim Jarvis
Tim Jervis
Fanie Jason
Ranjith Kally
William Kentridge
Alf Khumalo
Tom Killoran
Lesley Lawson
Chris Ledochowski
Leon Levson
John Liebenberg
Rashid Lombard
Peter Magubane
Greg Marinovich
Peter McKenzie
Gideon Mendel
Sabelo Mlangeni
Santu Mofokeng
Billy Monk
Zwelethu Mthethwa
G.R. Naidoo
Gopal Naransamy
Themba Nkosi
Jerry Ntsipe
Cedric Nunn
Sam Nzima
Ken Oosterbrook
Adrian Piper
Douglas Pithey
Jeeva Rajgopaul
Jo Ratcliffe
Catherine Ross
Robyn Ross
Arishad Satter
Jurge Schadeberg
Wendy Schwegmann
Thabiso Sekgala
Joao Silva
Guy Tillim
Unidentified
Gille de Vlieg
Noel Watson
Eli Weinberg
Paul Weinberg
Dan Weiner
Graeme Williams

Comments/Context: So I was roughly two hours into my visit of the densely engrossing and thoroughly captivating Rise and Fall of Apartheid exhibit when it finally dawned on me: I was still winding my way through the main floor and the show continued down the stairs and throughout the lower level. Oh no. There was no possible way I could absorb that much more material in one go without turning into a glassy eyed zombie. Worn out already, I reluctantly gave in and went home gloriously and unceremoniously defeated. Committed to vanquishing this unruly beast of a show, I returned to the museum a few weeks later with fresher legs and more available hours to finish it off. I tell you this cautionary tale not to scare you away, but to set your expectations for what you’re getting yourself into when you visit this tremendous exhibit. You are either superhuman or delusional if you think you can see it all in one swing through the galleries. My advice is don’t even try; tear it off in smaller chunks and pace yourself so you can follow the complex threads and ideas that are so smartly woven together.

Most of what is on view here might fall under the heading of traditional photojournalism or documentary photography, albeit perhaps with a modifier like concerned, engaged, or social to precede and amplify it. Curators Okwui Enwezor and Rory Bester have taken the best of this genre (much of it made by talented South African photographers who were first hand witnesses to the events) and mixed it together with relevant commercial and magazine imagery, photo essays, and fine art photographs of the same decade-long periods, bringing it all together in a rich, multi-layered portrait of both the relevant clashes and the changing underlying social fabric.

As the exhibit moves downstairs and the calendar moves to the 1980s, the story gets more complex, less linear, and more diffuse. Hans Haacke mixes Steve Biko’s dead body into a series of mock opera posters sponsored by Alcan. Guy Tillim watches the burning black smoke of ruined settlements and the clashes of axe wielding crowds. Cedric Nunn follows mourning, from a bride and groom at graveside to a mother covered in a blanket. David Goldblatt tracks long distance commuters, waiting at stops in the darkness and sleeping on overcrowded buses. University students are organized, fists are raised at funerals, prayer meetings are held, bodies are grimly dumped into mass graves, white settlers reenact the Great Trek, and black nannies tend white children. And it all takes place to the endlessly repeated refrain of Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City (that MTV staple from the mid 1980s) playing in the background. The tiny back room is the venue for the 1990s end of the story, where Mandela’s triumphant return is flanked by political opponents knifing each other, red smears on the sidewalk, and a nurse lying in a bloody pool outside a chicken shack. Famed photojournalist James Nachtwey ducks for cover in a street battle, crowds gather with hatchets raised, and cars are riddled with bullets. Ruthless intensity seems to have been turned up a notch with the struggle for political control more fluid and wide open.

• Features/Reviews: John Edwin Mason (here), NY Times (here), New Yorker (here), Guardian (here), Daily Beast (here), ARTNews (here), Artforum (here)

Comments/Context: Patrice Lumumba was the first elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo after it gained its independence from Belgium in 1960. Only a few months later, he was deposed in a coup and assassinated, but his nationalist dreams have lived on a number of African states, where his name adorns streets, buildings, and other monuments.

South African photographer Guy Tillim has been documenting the complex environment of post-colonial Africa for more than two decades, successfully bridging the worlds of photojournalism and fine art. This recent body of work focuses on the everyday life in a handful of African nations, as embodied by the decaying Modernist buildings left over from the late colonial times and their reuse by the current population.

What were once optimistic, clean lined concrete boxes, with geometric patterns and fancy grillwork, are now aging administration buildings and apartment blocks, covered in water damage and pollution stains, peeling paint, broken windows and rotting concrete. Stunted trees and weed strewn scrub are all that remain of the tidy landscapes; roadways are cracked and unmaintained. Toppled and beheaded statues lie forgotten in empty courtyards. Hotel swimming pools are overgrown and abandoned. Laundry flutters from Modernist adornments.

Inside, shadowy bare rooms have become simple offices with cast off, mismatched furniture, workers processing paperwork using antique typewriters and rubber stamps; papers and files have been stacked in mountains. The colors are muted and washed out, the action slow and deliberate. People are seen from back, gazing out of upper floor windows. Bright, pure light floods into the worn rooms and buildings. Simple surfaces like the dented top of a wooden desk or the chipped layers of paint on the edge of a door frame have become stories of their own.

These images are full of contrasts and juxtapositions, of what might have been and what has actually transpired. While it might be easy to see these images as discouraging or depressing, there is a quality of grace that Tillim has found amidst the rubble that makes these images rise into something altogether more poetic. The ravages of time are certainly in evidence, as are the hopes that didn’t come true and the plans that didn’t quite work out. In the end, these are quiet, contemplative pictures that powerfully chronicle what happens when the bright future doesn’t actually take place.

Collector’s POV: Guy Tillim is represented by Michael Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town (here). Tillim’s work has not yet found its way into the secondary markets in any volume, so gallery retail will be the best/only option for follow up in the short term.

I think I first saw this body of work at Michael Stevenson’s booth at the Armory earlier this year. Seeing it again in book form has increased my appreciation for the images; it’s a terrific book and I think the meditative story is much fuller and more resonant when seen across a wider group of pictures.

Transit Hub:

• Exhibitions: FOAM through August 30 (here), Peabody through September 7 (here)
• Reviews: 5B4 (here), Foto8 (here)
• Interviews: Lens Culture (here), Verbal Hmmm (here), Natal Witness (here)