Speakers:
Leslie Matlaisane
Professor Hlonipha Mokoena
Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Sean O’Toole
Fifty-five years since its first publication, A4 is honoured to host the launch of Ernest Cole’s reissued House of Bondage, which marks the first time the book can truly be said to be ‘available’ in Cape Town. Printed internationally in 1967, and banned locally, it was, until now, rare, scarce: too hard to get a copy of, too important not to read.
For this event, Leslie Matlaisane, Prof Hlonipha Mokoena, and Lindokuhle Sobekwa joined us from Johannesburg. Sean O’Toole lives in Cape Town. The invited speakers paged through the book, together with any other imagery and reference material they chose to share, while talking about Cole’s work. This imagery was projected onto the wall for the audience to follow along with the speakers. Much of the sharing was deeply personal, for instance, Matlaisane is Cole’s nephew and protects his estate. Sobekwa, as a teenager, found himself paging through Cole’s book at night, by the light of a single candle. He credits this experience as the moment he knew he must become a photographer; as if Cole was encouraging the young Sobekwa from beyond.
Thank you to Paul Weinberg, the Photography Legacy Project, Aperture, Olamuk, Jonathan Ball Publishers and Three Peaks Wine.
In preparation for the exhibition Tell It to the Mountains at A4, photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa spoke about his first encounter with Ernest Cole’s House of Bondage. Sobekwa was seventeen years old. He paged through the book late into the night by the light of a single candle. The photographs in the book cast stories in the shadows and spoke to the teenager of his destiny. He recounts that experience as a revelation; a first knowing of what he must become.
In 2021, Tell It to the Mountains by Lindokuhle Sobekwa and Mikhael Subotzky opened with a photograph each by Cole, Santu Mofokeng, and David Goldblatt, honouring these photographic ancestors and the lineage of which the younger Sobekwa and Subotzky had become part.
During the time Sobekwa spent at A4 in preparation for that exhibition, Sean O’Toole began his own research residency at our lab. “What is the South African photo book?” O’Toole asked, unpacking his library of South African photo books. The following year, the browsable exhibition Photo book! Photo-book! Photobook! curated by O’Toole opened with Cole’s House of Bondage centred on one of two dividing walls in the gallery. Throughout the course of the exhibition, in conversations with visitors, O’Toole referred to Cole as “the impossible benchmark.” At one count, there were 510 books in the exhibition. This number fluctuated as O’Toole added or subtracted books, but not by much. Many of the photographers and artists were represented by the many books each had published in their lifetime. Cole’s contribution was singular; profound.