These shots of Beehived, boozed up, breast-flashing gals, slumped-over sailors and tongue-entwined couples were shot by nightclub bouncer Billy Monk between 1967 and 1969 in Cape Town, South Africa. Removing themselves from the reality of the ongoing apartheid, these festive folk fled to the Les Catacombs and nearby clubs to drunkenly dance away their ambivalence or guilt. Monk captured intimate moments and dizzy vignettes of the wilder ones and sold them their prints. Ten years after he abandoned the hobby, another photographer found the contact sheets and negatives in Monk’s studio and organized his first gallery show in 1982. Monk never made it — he was shot dead in a fight on the way to the exhibit.
Decades later, these (occasionally mildly NSFW) vintage party shots could invoke clashing feelings: amusement, disbelief, disgust, delight. Come along with us to this strange celebration and see where it takes you.
South African Township Barbershops & Salons is a compilation of photographs documenting the thriving grooming industry in communities once designated for black occupation by apartheid legislation. After working as a cover designer for Penguin Books and Harper Collins, the book’s UK-based author Simon Weller turned to freelance photography, and this vibrant and compelling collection of images is a result of his interest in South Africa’s growing pains in the wake of institutional segregation.
When Die Antwoord first appeared on the internet scene, the band’s underfed-kid-meets-hipster hairdos and so-dumb-it’s-believable slang set off alarm bells for the authenticity trolls among us. Were they true alt-bros? Or merely art school dropouts posing as “borderline mentally-retarded Poor Children from Ghettos covered in Generic Cheetoes Dust and Meth Crumbs”? Turns out it doesn’t matter, as the trio has been signed to Interscope Records and announced a European-American tour later this year. So very very zef. Check out the semi-demented and thoroughly entertaining video for “Zef Side” after the jump.
The third in his series of fictionalized memoirs, J.M. Coetzee’s Summertime questions the author’s own relevance as a human being.
In the process of understanding why readers care about who he is, Coetzee tries to show himself as an awkward, un-sexualized man who is no more worthy of public curiosity than anyone else. Featuring a fictional interviewer, out-of-frame notes, and a series of less-than-flattering third-party accounts, Summertime is a deeply sardonic but ultimately entrancing self-portrait of the Nobel laureate.
Geologist-turned-photographer Roger Ballen takes haunting images of poor South Africans in surreal situations of their own making.
Ballen collaborates with his subjects to construct psychological settings — filled with wall drawings, odd objects, pets, and body parts — that he then documents in black-and-white. These nightmarish visions, which Ballen makes into prints and books, grant the viewer insight into the troubled minds of criminals, transients, witch doctors, and impoverished laborers who toil in gold mines.
District 9 is currently sitting pretty with a nearly unprecedented 97 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It doesn’t come out until tomorrow, and as far as we can tell, the New York Times hasn’t reviewed it yet, so all of this attention is resulting in some major hype. The sci-fi film from first-time director and Peter Jackson protege Neill Blomkamp takes place in South Africa, where aliens complicate an already-tense societal racial divide. District 9 is bringing out exclamation points and hyperbole in critics, who, judging by their tone, haven’t seen a movie this good in…a long time. Check out our favorite lines from the reviews after the jump. Read More »
