To what extent has David Goldblatt’s work influenced Michelle Sank’s work?

In this essay I am going to explore how Michelle Sank’s nominated artist David Goldblatt has influenced her work. I am going to do further research into both of the works displayed at the exhibition, to find further connections and relationships between them, beyond what is displayed on the surface.

David Goldblatt 

David Goldblatt is a South African photographer, he was born in South Africa after his Jewish parents fled Europe in the 1890’s . Since the late 1940’s he has photographed the social and physical landscape of South Africa. However, he is most well know for photographing people in South Africa during the period of apartheid, where black people were physically and socially segregated and treated differently  to white people through the use of separate facilities such as schools, accommodation and transportation. David Goldblatt has various publications and has won many awards. During this time period as a white person photographing black people was an unusual thing to be doing, because if you were caught Interacting with a black person you would be sentenced to prison.

http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/2214?=undefined&page=1

Michelle Sank 

Michelle Sank was born in Cape Town, South Africa. She has been living in England since 1987. Michelle photographs the human conditions exploring social and cultural diversity through documentary photography. Michelle has had many successful solo exhibitions and publications including books. She has also won many awards for example her most recent award was in 2013, Gold Award, San Francisco International Photographic Exhibition. She recently displayed her work both in Jersey and Guernsey.

http://www.michellesank.com

The photograph that I’m looking at by Michelle Sank that was published in the exhibition is actually from a larger collection of photographs under the title ‘Insula’ taken in April 2013. I read some more about the 6 months that Michelle Sank was in residency at the Archisle and found that she trying to photograph how being on the Island and within a ‘kept environment’ influenced peoples way of being. I then googled the definition of Insula, it showed that Insula means “a region of the brain deep in the cerebral cortex.” I then furher looked into the cerebral cortex and it is the part of the brain that is linked to your conscientious, self- awareness and perception. This is linked with the exhibitions idea of ‘islandness’ , being aware  socially and politically and also being aware and having other photographic connections outside of the island.  David Goldblatt also photographed peoples social and physical landscape and in this case for Michelle Sank it was Jersey.

One of the most damaging things that apartheid did to us, was that it denied us the experience of each other’s lives. – David Goldblatt

I then looked at David Goldblatt’s photograph which is of two black people holding a car bumper. I didn’t really understand what this represented or if it was a metaphor for something. However, when I looked at the tittle ‘ She told him: “You’ll be the driver and i’ll be the lady”, then they grabbed the car bumper and posed, Hillbrow, 1975’ I then connected with this photograph and found it quite touching. This photograph represented a dream that they couldn’t achieve due to the cultural segregation, which I think is wrong in everyway.  I think the fact that the bumper is straight, shows the divide between the people in the photograph who I think could have been servants and their ‘owner’ . The photograph is taken infront of a building which could be where they were living. The photograph was taken in Johannesburg which at the time was not a place were everyone was smoothly integrated, which renforces what David Goldblatt was photographing.  I think this photograph is very powerful and speaks for itself.

The first connection I saw between these photographs, although it was fairly obvious, was that they had both photographed a portrait of two people and included their surroundings, which allows us to get a better understanding. I then realised that David’s photograph at that time would have been of the working class, I then looked at Michelle photograph and by what they are wearing and their surrounding I think the girls are also from a middle/working class. I then questioned if there was any particular reason why she photographed twins, it could be that the people in David’s photograph are also related to each other although I don’t know this for sure. Other than the photograph itself I found connections between the photographers. The first one I found was that they were both born in South Africa and they are both white, this may be what inspired and influenced Michelle Sank and let her to choose David as her nominated artist. The second connection that I found although it was in different centuries they are both photographing cultural diversity and peoples physical and social landscape.

In conclusion, to answer my question I think that David Goldblatt is a huge influence for Michelle Sank  and there are many connections between not only their work but as people themselves. In this project Michelle Sanks work links closely to the work of David, as I have found above, however having looked at some of her other projects there aren’t as many connections although most of pictures are environmental portraits which show the differences between people as well as this I think the photographs portray personal identities. But these photos keep to the conjoint theme of photographing peoples physical and social landscape.

Quintessence is a group exhibition which celebrates 5 years of the Archisle, which is a Jersey contemporary photography program made through the  Société Jersiaise Photo Archive.  The Archisle connects photographic archives to contemporary photography and experiences of Island life through the work of Jersey and international artists. Jersey is a small island but with internationalism, photographers are more socially and politically aware and have made many connections outside of the Island. To highlight the importance of connections and influences in this exhibition, Quintessence, the photographers have been asked to nominate someone who inspired their own work. “We do not travel alone; we take with us the histories, knowledge, influences and ideas of others; others we have met and other places we have known.”

We visited the exhibition on  Tuesday 8th of December, when I first walked into the room, the first thing I noticed was the way the photographs had been displayed. I think that the display looked professional and I like the way the photographs had been laid out because it flowed well visually . I noticed that there wasn’t any labels letting the viewers know who made the photograph, however there were booklets which included this information. I think that it would have been more user friendly to have the artist names with the photographs.I found myself constantly looking at the booklet and the photographs to try and find the artist which after a while became a hassle. I preferred this exhibition to the exhibition for 125 years of the JEP I think it was more visually attractive. In the JEP exhibition there was short paragraphs with each photograph explaining what was happening in the photo.  In this exhibition there was no explanation, when confronted with this question, Gareth the curator said that this was done deliberately so that the viewer would be intrigued by the context of the photo and do some further research into the meaning, rather than just looking at it once and never referring back to it.

My favorite photograph from the exhibition was the photograph by Finn Larson called ‘Al Gore Was Here’. I found this photograph visually attractive and I like the composition of the three smaller separate photographs had a line going through them which led my eyes from one photograph to another.  This photograph was simple but I think that’s what made it good. It was not until I further researched into this photograph that I understood the meaning behind it. Behind the photograph of what looked like a beautiful landscape, there was actually a rubbish dump hidden, which are at completely to different ends of the spectrum.  Often place are portrayed to be ‘ touristic-ally appealing’ but we rarely ever get to see the other side. I think in this photograph Finn Larson was trying to illustrate this divide, I think he achieved this in an intelligent way These photographs were the only ones displayed however he had a newspaper style booklet with photographs of the dump behind this landscape. After I found out the meaning behind the photographs I questioned why Finn had broken the small photographs that went together into three rather than using it as one, we then thought that he could be using the ‘breaks’ in the photograph as a metaphor for breaking the public’s perception of these ‘touristic-ally’ attractive places.

One of my least favorite photographs from the exhibition was the photographs by Iury Toropstov, called ‘fairyland’. I chose them as my least favorite because I didn’t really find any connection with the photographs and I didn’t think that they were very visually attractive. However I think that the portrait of the girl was quite powerful because it presented her as a beautiful mystical ‘creature’ which ties in with fairyland, however if you look closer she had bruises and cuts on her arm, showing that shes dealing with more deeper and serious issues that what she is presented to be. I also like the idea behind ‘fairyland’ and how it links in with Jersey’s history, however I don’t think the combination of photographs were strong or appealing enough.