Ernest Cole: Unalterable Blackness

 ERNEST COLE 

You may escape, but you carry your prison smell with you 

Ernest Cole (Newbury 2009:174)

Mac Photobooth

The book "Defiant Images" by Darren Newbury [DN], was  shared with me. This book has one chapter dedicated to and makes commentary on Ernest Cole's [EC] "House of Bondage" book. My reading of this chapter has inspired the writings for this blog post. I ask my 'followers' to please read EC's bio by clicking on 'buka lapha'. This link has been retrieved from Omar Badsha's site: SA History Online.

buka lapha

Newbury states that the House of Bondage [HoB] is a visual record, supported by accompanying text,  of the oppressed conditions of the majority of people living during Apartheid (2009:174)_ "a damning visual critique" (2009:207). DN lists these conditions as:

• dehumanization (depriving human qualities) of the black population
• the dislocation (disturbance from usual place/injury) of families
• the distortion (pull or twist out of shape, mislead, false) of black society and culture

Newbury adds that this book is also a commentary on photography itself and an "affirmation of EC's existence". The ability as a "black South African to create a body of work in spite of the restrictions of apartheid" (2009:174) . Newbury further states, that for EC, being in exile, it was a subtext (an underlying theme) to answer a personal question that EC faced, that being: "How to free oneself from apartheid?"(2009:174)

The HoB contains 183 photographs organized into 14 sections.

1. The Mines
2. Police and Passes
3. Black Spots
4. Nightmare Rides
5. The Cheap Servant
6. For Whites Only
7. Below Subsistence
8. Education for the Servitude
9. Hospital Care
10. Heirs of Poverty
11. Shebeens and Bantu Beer
12. The Consolation of Religion
13. African Middle Class
14. Banishment

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TEXT and IMAGES

EC according to Newbury, was from a generation of Photographers who "believed in the autonomy (on it's own/independant) of the image and it's ability to communicate across cultural boundries" (2009:185), but Newbury says that leaving the "images to speak for themselves would have left the meaning too much to chance and given the audience too much to work with" (2009:205). Bear in mind that the audience was a Western audience as this book was banned in South Africa.

Please note: all images used below have been resourced from http://www.joburg.org.za/culture/museums-galleries/jag/ernest-cole-photographer and the captions are the text from EC's book "House of Bondage' [HoB].

Caption unknown: young boys playing

During group medical examination the nude men are herded through a string of doctors’ offices.

Which black train to take is matter of guesswork. They have no destination signs and no announcement of arrivals is made. Head car may be numbered to show its route, but number is often wrong. In confusion, passengers sometimes jump across track, and some are killed by express trains

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 3 relevant questions asked by Newbury

• 1. Would EC have produced the same book had he been able to publish his works freely in South Africa?
• 2. To what extent is the HoB an authentic expression of EC's voice as a black South African (2009:205)? 
• 3. To what extent can HoB be read as a critique of the photographic tradition from which it emerged and was embraced (2009:205)?

During a “swoop,” police are everywhere, checking passes. Young boy is stopped for his pass as white plainclothesman looks on. Checks go on in the townships, too.

In relation to the above questions posed by Newbury, it is interesting but extreemly sad,to read an insert from EC's letter, written to the Swedish immigration authorities, as it exemplifies those questions. EC writes(2009:209):  
" Recording TRUTH at whatever the costs is one thing, but finding oneself having to live a lifetime of being the chronicler of misery, injustice and callousness is another...but the total man does not live by one experience. He is molded and shaped by the diversity of other experiences into some form of the whole man". 



Unfortunately EC never managed to escape the issue of race and develop his own works in a new direction. In the early 70's it was reported that he suffered from mental health problems, and was periodically homeless and in 1990 died 'exiled' in a New York hospital from cancer.

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FURTHER READING:
Book list_sourced from Wikipedia/ Books with 's have been order for ML Sultan Library

• House of Bondage, Random House, 1967, ISBN 0-394-42935-4

• Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa, Darren Newbury, University of South Africa (UNISA) Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-86888-523-7 (see Chapter 4. An 'unalterable blackness': Ernest Cole's House of Bondage)

• The Photographer, Ernest Cole, Steidl, 2010, ISBN 978-3869301372

GOOGLE BOOKMARKS list_thank-you to Nirmi Ziegler for sharing links.

View this list<https://www.google.com/bookmarks/l?threadID=Gne7DpsJTtLU/BDZco3woQso_FwJIm


OTHER BLOG posts_seminar exhibition

http://osmosisliza.blogspot.com/2011/07/seminar-ernest-cole.html 

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