Graeme Williams, born 1961, South Africa Search this
Medium:
Inkjet print on paper
Dimensions:
H x W: 91.4 x 91.4 cm (36 x 36 in.)
Type:
Photograph
Geography:
South Africa
Date:
2010
Series:
2/5
Label Text:
The screen of the Top Star Drive-in Theatre is part of Marking Time, an ongoing photographic essay that South African photographer Graeme Williams began in 2008. At the heart of this epic image lies the tension between frontier and unfulfilled promises. Here, Williams focused his camera on the ledge of a mine dump where the earth has given way and nothing remains but an abandoned drive-in movie screen. With this incongruous image, he exposes the legacy of the mines, the seclusion of a state that did not allow television until 1976, and the inability of a new democratic government to meet the needs of either its people or its land. In Williams’s work, people, grass and minerals are all absent--a once ideal frontier laid bare. It is not a landscape inviting settlement, but uninhabitable and abandoned.
Description:
Digital photograph of a deserted landscape dominated by an eroded hillside and the back view of a drive-in movie screen, positioned on the edge of the hill. The sky is a pale grey, and the earth varies from rusty reds to pale grey and dust.
Exhibition History:
Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., April 22, 2013-February 23, 2014; Fowler Museum at UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles, April 19-September 14, 2014; Bowdoin College Museum of Art, October 15, 2015-March 9, 2016
Published References:
Milbourne, Karen E. 2013. Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa. New York: The Monacelli Press; Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, p. 153, no. 124.
Content Statement:
As part of our commitment to accessibility and transparency, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art is placing its collection records online. Please note that some records are incomplete (missing image or content descriptions) and others reflect out-of-date language or systems of thought regarding how to engage with and discuss cultural heritage and the specifics of individual artworks. If you see content requiring immediate action, we will do our best to address it in a timely manner. Please email nmafacuratorial@si.edu if you have any questions.
Image Requests:
High resolution digital images are not available for some objects. For publication quality photography and permissions, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at https://africa.si.edu/research/eliot-elisofon-photographic-archives/
