Gideon Mendel – a photographic giant

ROBYN SASSEN

You might remember Gideon Mendel’s name if you lived in Yeoville in Johannesburg or read The Star in the 1980s. A self-trained photographer who worked at The Star before moving on to Agence France-Presse, in 1988 he showed a body of photographs at the Market Theatre Gallery dealing with the suburb of Yeoville.

It broke new ground in celebrating tentative outreaches between black and white South Africans. The work is on show again at Gallery Momo in Parktown.

Mendel came into the discipline through a back door of his own making. He was part of the “last generation to grow up under the dark days of apartheid: before the Bang Bang Club, in which Greg Marinovic, Kevin Carter, Joao Silva and Ken Oosterbroek rose to prominence”.

A contemporary of photographers including the late Gisèle Wulfsohn, he cut his professional teeth on the background of politicised restrictions. “In 1986, emergency was declared in SA. A list was published, forbidding photographs to be taken at funerals, gatherings…

“I was living in Hunter Street (in Yeoville) and, armed with a staying-out-of-the-army degree from UCT, I got a job at The Star which brought me back to Johannesburg. I loved the park next to the recreation centre.” He baulks at the idea of considering this a passion project. “It was an obsession.”

It manifested in a series of postcard-sized images, which quickly became a critical cornerstone. “I really like the intimacy of a small picture.”

When Okwui Enwezor, co-curator of the Rise and Fall of Apartheid exhibition, approached him a few years ago to consider work for the exhibition, this series was in a box. “It blew him away. He didn’t have space to show it all. Instead, he commissioned me to make a video of it.”

Mendel, who emigrated to London in 1990, believes photography’s in his blood. Uncle of photographer Mikhael Subotzky, his German-Jewish maternal grandmother was an independent photographer. “She made beautiful prints in the 1920s and 1930s; they say nothing about what was going on at the time.”  

One motivation for reshowing this work is to encourage support for a project he’s worked on for years. “Drowning World is my attempt to address climate change. I have become a global flood vulture. In 1987, there was a flood in England. I was experimenting with making portraits with a newly-acquired Rolleiflex camera. Six weeks later, there was a flood in India. And the die was cast for a series. This work is counter-intuitive: they are conventional portraits in hectic environments.”

Mendel wants to show this work at next year’s Paris Climate Change Conference; he’s also keen to make photo books. “I also want to do a book of my Yeoville work. I’ve been doing work in Yeoville recently: there’s new Yeoville, and there’s old Yeoville. They deserve to interface. I have been remiss in not doing enough books over the years.”

• Mendel’s website: www.gideonmendel.com; Living in Yeoville Revisited is at Gallery Momo 7th Avenue, Parktown until November 24: (011) 327-3247.