John Liebenberg
Johanesburg, South Africa, 1958.
John Liebenberg is one of the outstanding photographers of Southern Africa. Portraits and landscape photography are the main motifs of his work, but his a photograph of the happening, the present moment. While working as a press photographer for The Namibian and Reuters, he openly disregarded the sensorship regulations in South Africa and showed the horrible face of the Apartheid regime of South Africa, as well as the face of the Apartheid regime’s wars in the neighbouring countries: Namibia and Angola. The photos he took appeared on the front pages of big western newspapers.
Between 1990 and 1996, working for Reuters Television, he covered Angola civil war systematically and with passion, without any pretension. Like he says, “I was shooting for television… and during the shoot or after, I would take a snapshot or two…”
John is the keeper of a huge archive, with documental and aesthetics value. It’s time to present his great pcitrues as artwork, composing all these fragments of memory with the artistic perspective.
Publications (selection): Namibia: Revue Noire. Paris; December 1994; “Anthology of African and Indian ocean Photography”. Revue Noire, 1999; Regards Croisés, with Pierrot Men, Yves Pitchen and Ricardo Rangel. French Ministére de la Coopération. 1996.
Exhibitions (selection):
The eye of the elephant. Namibian arts association.1990;
Independence exibition, India Department Arts and Culture, Namibia, 1990;
The Johannesburg Art Gallery. Vita Awards Finalist, 1990;
Namibia: The red factory, Zurich – The Eye – Geneva, 1991;
Democracy you cannot eat, The State Archive Bremen, 1993;
Namibia of Today, Bamako, Dec 1994;
John Liebenberg Photo Exhibition. Goethe institute /Iwalewa- Haus Nairobi, June 2008;
Aufblicke’ The Iwalewa House Bayreuth for Basler Afrika Bibliographien Basel. November 8th, 2006 until December 22nd.
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