Verbal.

Mention legendary South African photographers in a conversation and in most cases, one name will often pop up and that’s Guy Tillim. Guy is one of South Africa’s top photographers, having started as a war photographer in the 80′s, during the Apartheid era and since then appealing to the art scene with his imagery. Guy has won countless awards for his work, most recently the Oskar Barnack award for his series, Jo’burg, in 2005

Guy, as expected, has limited amounts of free time, so with this in mind, presented me with a previously unpublished interview to use as a starting point. Additional questions were answered on the phone between us.

You are well known for your photographs of the wars in Africa. How do you conceive your work as a photographer? Is it about documentation or reportage? Or we should also speak of cultural anthropology or of a form of political critique?

The impulse was always towards reportage, it was the way I grew up as a photographer, working during the apartheid years in South Africa. It was a way of seeing my own country. So the work I made had this dual aspect: outside interest in my own domestic situation, inclined towards reportage, and the need to see what was happening in my own country, inclined towards documentation. These aspects posed two different questions respectively: “what is different?”, a bread and butter question of reportage, and “what is the same?”, the point of departure of documentary photography.

It started off as a form of political resistance, in its way, and then became a form of expression that could possibly be passed off as art, it is not for me to say. The world has been mesmerised of late by the transformation of visual language, and hence the obsession with photography. It would seem that for the first time in photographic practice we are able to discern intention. We have sensed it in Cartier-Bresson, for example, and passed it off as a “decisive moment”. We know now his legacy is greater than that: humour, humility and insight in the face of conventional obsession with death (cold war at the time of the publication of his book The Europeans) and national boundaries. In his case, we are inclined to view as art something he committed in the name of reportage. These boundaries move, keeping track is an endless obsession, why should it be any other way?

Reportage, according to Cartier-Bresson, was also a way, in his own words, “to testify with a quicker instrument than a brush to the scars of the world”, a sort of ethical stance. Would you still agree on that?

To me, his ethical stance was entirely personal. In his words, he offered the world a companionship of images, when he was at his best. And it was not prescriptive. I think we have learned lately to be thankful for that.

Another reference that comes to mind looking at your photographs – the Kunhinga portraits series, for instance –, is the work of American realists like Walker Evans; his humanistic approach to photography is something you consider still significant in your own experience?

His “humanistic” approach was significant because it was important in the environment in which I learned my trade. Also, he was one of the photographers that laid foundations in the search for context within documentary photography. But this I mean his non-judgemental approach to his fellow human beings pointed towards a freer imagination of the world outside of the frame.

Have you always been working as a photo reporter? Could you tell me something about your career and professional experiences?

I’ve always been a photo reporter, but the ways in which the work has been published, and the way I’ve approached things has changed over the years. I’ve moved from newspapers to European and American magazines, to my own self-assigned work that has had a variety of outlets, now most recently the gallery space. Though often it is a combination of the three.

Showing your images in gallery and museum spaces, dealing with the art world in other words, does generate a shift in your practice, in your general attitude?

This is a shift the art world has made with regard to photojournalism. There is some debate about this, about bringing sometimes, say, images made on frontiers of war and pain to the white cube space. There are ethical questions raised. However, the gallery space is challenging, it is unforgiving and in the end carries the full burden of the work, with the useful possibility of exposing a photographer’s full intention.

You are saying that bringing reportage inside the art system, transforming it in an artwork, also changes it’s ethic, politic, social status? In what terms? And what consequences on your work?

Curatorial instincts in a place like Documenta or a Bienale change the context of the way the work is seen, they challenge other motives in the work than the need to witness. To me, a good show will look at itself looking, will expose the preconceptions of the nature of that witness. This may not be everyones cup of tea, but the process is useful, it tries to get under the skin of prejudice and ignorance with which even the most informed of us view the world. For my work the consequences are that I should look for answers more within my imaginary realm than outside of it.

Our world is literally flooded with images of war, violence and death. Exposed to the “pain of the others” viewers’ response is desensitized and apathetic. How could you characterize your position as a photographer in the context of the “society of spectacle”, where the real is relentlessly transformed in an imaginary, apolitical and harmless projection?

The ease with which we can make images leads us to a trap. The endless repetition of iconography is a currency that is traded just like anything else. We cease to see what it tells us because the mere signifiers are enough. It serves as illustration rather than spectacle. In some sense, the spectacle resides in our imagination. The poverty of that imagination fed by inarticulate images is a difficulty. They signify everything but express nothing, symtoms of a polarizing world. I think one’s position is this context should be obvious.

What do you think of the elusive “aesthetic” value of the photographic images? How much is this aspect relevant for you?

Aesthetic value is a curse and an opportunity because ideas of what is beautiful shift, and they define a way of looking. It’s a mistake is to assume the aesthetic is defined by one’s sensibilities. It’s the other way around, and recognizing that is perhaps the first way out of confines of this mechanical process we know as photography.

Looking at your photographs one can feel at times “plunged” in the action, like for instance in the series Congo Democratic. Other times there is a distance, a harsh witness of the realities of the war; others you turn into an explorer, and anthropologist. Like in your portrait series. How these different attitudes are connected in your vision?

These different attitudes are just ways of dealing with worlds that leap out of your preconception and imagination, and into the present in front of you. To deal with everything in the same way would be a kind of defense that would strangle part of the dual journey, the interior one, that one needs to make in order to express something about such and such a place.

How does the subject matter dictate the posture of the witness, of the photographer, then?

The posture of witness involves an act of interpretation, the usefulness of which will have to do with factors other than the subject. One is a worthy witness or not, it’s a question of character.

So, the so called “neutrality” of the reporter it’s in fact a myth?

Neutrality is a luxury.

How do you choose your subjects; do you plan your shootings, how you “discover” the realities depicted in your reportages?

The idea for a body of work would develop over time. Whatever it is, the difficulty lies in realizing the approach. For example, at the start a project photographing the centre Johannesburg, I spent a month or so working on the streets trying to build up different aspects of life there, to build up a portrait from its component parts. After a while I realized that my notion of a portrait of a city was absurd. The city’s impulses were infinite, it defied the simplification of the all seeing camera eye. I realized I needed to narrow my focus if I had any hopes of hinting at a wider truth. I worked inside buildings, tried to let the spaces speak for themselves without imposing moments onto a scene, as if waiting for them to conform to my conventional iconographic ideas. This was interesting for me, sustained me in situations I found depressing, where people were living hard.

What strikes me in the Johannesburg series is also a cinematic effect. The images look to me like frames of a long traveling shot. This is something planned or just a “side effect”?

It’s a side effect, though in retrospect I can see the connection: an even use of the ambient light; people’s space, not their actions, are framed.

Can we talk about your project for Documenta? What photographs did you show?

Documenta showed photos I made in Kinshasa during the election there in 2006. I had spent three weeks in Kinshasa in the build up to the election.

Your Jo’Burg series is one that I can relate to, having grown up in the city and spending many weekends in Hillbrow during the late ’80′s and 90′s. How do you feel when you return now to a city that’s lost some of the sparkle it once had?

I think it is a shell of a former self. The truth is that it is becoming an African city, with that there has to be change and a period of unrest. It’s a process, its not come to a point of no return, but more of evolution. There are many interesting things happening there. For me, Johannesburg was no longer accessible as a young white boy. During my Johannesburg series, I rented apartment Plain street for 5 months and was the only white guy on the block. I pretty much had diplomatic immunity, which was good.

I’ve recently commented on the fact that often you never hear of a happy story being told about Africa. It’s always the miserable, human suffering angle that is reported. Do you think this has to do with the editors at the various publications, or the fact it’s often easier for a journalist to concentrate on the negative over the positive?

There is a lot of miserable stuff happening on this continent. Loads of countries are only now coming out of colonial wars. The ceasefire in Angola only happened in 2002/2003, there is no end in sight to the Congo situation, Mozambique has 25 years of civil war, which was bound to take a while to resolve.

The thing is, there are serious problems in africa which did require our attention. One has to be careful with the positive/negative thing. Just because one takes images of dance halls in lagos, and people being happy, it might end up being as much as a cliche as the suffering image.

Positives images are one that are self-aware or are interesting, penetration and original no matter what they look at. Negatives images are ones that perpetuate the issue. Let’s face it, Stereotypes are currency in this industry and actively traded by western media.

The problem with images is that we are so visually driven, cliches are bound to be strong. There is a lack of context. If we see a crumbling wall, we think this is a metaphor for the human issue. It’s not, it’s often just a crumbling wall. What is positive and negative depends on your view. There is a cliche of war and famine in Africa. I believe I try and avoid it, not that I always have, I have been bought by western media as anyone else. We grow up.

Best advice for young photographers?

Young people here have so much opportunity with the amount of background knowledge of South Africa. In the 80′s and 90′s, the world had a thirst for South African news, so the general public are aware of what this country is. Use this to your benefit. Do work that is interesting to you, work out what the orthodox is and go against it.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.