Artists

Ernest Cole

Press release

This exhibition revisits South African photographer Ernest Cole’s ground-breaking project
 

"It is an extraordinary experience to live as though life were a punishment for being black." Ernest Cole

South African photographer Ernest Cole (1940–1990) is considered one of the most important chroniclers of Apartheid politics. 

This substantial exhibition revisits Cole’s ground-breaking project House of Bondage.

In 1966 Cole fled South Africa and smuggled out his photographs, settling in New York. House of Bondage was published in 1967 and revealed the brutality and injustice of Apartheid to the world, vividly documenting the everyday life of the Black population in South Africa. It became one of the most significant photobooks of the twentieth century.  

In more than 100 photographs, the exhibition covers all 15 thematic chapters into which Cole has divided House of Bondage and also includes works from the chapter Black Ingenuity, which was not published in the original edition of the book.