The N1 Highway slices South Africa North by South, from the Zimbabwean border down to Cape Town. Historically, socially and politically its 2100 kms are charged, however the road proper only appears at the front and end of the series. Between these brackets it’s presented as a series of oblique scenes which occurred on and around the road, and which attempt to give a sense of the road’s taut atmosphere. The extended captions of Sean O’ Toole, which are not aimed directly at the photographs’ material content further add to this sense.
The National Gallery of South Africa owns, and has shown, part of this series. Not yet shown in toto.
Extended captions by Sean O’Toole who is a Cape Town-based journalist and writer.
Currently editor of Art South Africa, a quarterly print magazine focusing on contemporary South African and African art, he writes a weekly column on photography for the Sunday Times, South Africa’s largest circulation newspaper title, also a biweekly art column for the Financial Mail, a weekly business magazine. Widely published as a journalist, both in South African and abroad, his journalism has also appeared in, amongst other titles, Adbusters, BBC Focus on Africa, Colors, Creative Review, Eye, frieze, GEO, ID (USA), and Kyoto Journal.
A published short story writer, his debut collection, The Marquis of Mooikloof and Other Stories (Double Storey, 2006), included a short fiction awarded the 2006 HSBC/SA PEN Literary Award, judged by JM Coetzee. His non-fiction writings have appeared in a number of books, including Ghetto (Trolley Books, 2004), by photographers Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin; Joburg Circa Now (Kurgan & Ractliffe, 2004), My Dad (Two Dogs, 2006); These are a few of our favourite things (Disturbance, 2007), a jointly authored studio retrospective profiling design agency Disturbance; and The Ceramic Art of Robert Hodgins (Bell-Roberts, 2007).
Born in Pretoria (1968), Sean holds separate degrees in English Literature, Law and Creative Writing.
1/5 127cm by 100 cm 1/3 50 by 60 cm + 2 a/p
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