Curator Sanlam Art Collection Stefan Hundt explains that these two photographic exhibitions, at the Sanlam Art Gallery, were planned to coincide with the Cape Town Photographic Festival in September. Looking In features the iconic work of Jurgen Schadeberg. Looking Out – Uitsig is a collection of photographs by Ashley Walters.
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The Jurgen Schadeberg photographs on exhibition are a selection of 60 iconic works from the Frank Kilbourn Collection. Schadeberg came to South Africa from Germany in the mid-1950’s and worked for Drum Magazine. He was the outsider Looking In.at Johannesburg. He took photographs in those days of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Thambo and other key people in the struggle. And in the 1994 took photos of the liberated Mandela on Robben Island.
Jurgen Schadeberg – Mandela’s return to his Cell on Robben Island I 1994
The early photos included celebrities such as Miriam Makeba. He captured images of the time in and around a divided Johannesburg. These black and white photographs also reflect on the black and white Apartheid era in South Africa.
This exhibition is appropriate for Heritage Month, with Heritage Day on 24 September.
Photographer Ashley Walters is Looking Out from his suburb of Uitsig, notorious for gangsterism, and where he grew up as a child. Uitsig is down the road and across the line from Sanlam, and where a lot of their workers live. These photographs are intriguing and reveal so much about what Uitsig was and Walters’ own perspectives.
This selection of work is a bright contrast to the black and white Schadeberg photographs. They also belong to the digital age where photography happens in the darkroom and on the computer.
The two contrasting exhibitions forming Looking In/Looking Out opens officially on 11 September, and will be open to the public from 12 September to 31 October 2025
WHAT: Looking In – Jurgen Schadeberg & Looking Out/Uitsig – Ashley Walters
WHERE: Sanlam Art Gallery, 2 Strand Road, Belville, Cape Town 7530
WHEN: 12 September to 31 October 2025 | Gallery hours Mon – Fri 09:00-16:30 | Free entrance
INFO: T 021 947 3359 | E sanlamart@sanlam.co.za | Visit
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