- Bob Gosani
Bob Gosani (b. 1934 d. 1972) was a
South Africa nphotographer .Overview
Bob Gosani started off at Drum magazine as a messenger but soon moved to the photographic department where he became
Jürgen Schadeberg ’s darkroom assistant. He later became one of Drum’s best photographers. cite news | first= | last= | coauthors= | title=Drum Magazine | date= | publisher= | url =http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/artsmediaculture/arts/media/drum.htm | work =SA History | pages = | accessdate = 2007-12-03 | language = ]Schadeberg said that "Gosani stood out because in the early 1950s good black photographers and press photographers in particular were unheard of". [cite book |author=Jacqui Masiza and Mothobi Mutloatse |title=Tauza - Bob Gosani's People |publisher=Struik |location=Cape Town |year=2005 |pages=18 |isbn=9-78-177007177-3 |oclc= |doi=]
Some of his pictures have become iconic images of the 1950’s in South Africa e.g. the picture of "Women during the
Defiance Campaign " in 1952 cite news | first= | last= | coauthors= | title=Women's struggle in South Africa | date= | publisher= | url =http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/womens-struggle/struggle6.htm | work =SA History | pages = | accessdate = 2007-12-03 | language = ] ,Nelson Mandela sparring with his boxing club's star boxer of the time, Jerry Moloi (taken on the rooftop of theSouth African Associated Newspapers office inJohannesburg ) cite news | first= | last= | coauthors= | title=Freedom of Joburg for Mandela | date= | publisher= | url =http://www.southafrica.info/what_happening/news/mandela-joburg.htm | work =SouthAfrica.info | pages = | accessdate = 2007-04-22 | language = ] and Nelson Mandela outside court in 1958, (triumphant because the prosecution had withdrawn charges in theTreason Trial ). cite news | first=Glenn | last=Frankel | coauthors= | title=Long Walk to Freedom | date=2006-12-24 | publisher=The Washington Post Company | url =http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/21/AR2006122101288.html | work =The Washington Post | pages = | accessdate = 2007-04-22 | language = ]Perhaps his most famous sequence of pictures was the sequence he took of the humiliating and degrading "Tauza dance" that naked prisoners were forced to perform in the courtyard of the notorious
Johannesburg prison, The Fort, inHillbrow . This "dance" was a humiliating way of ensuring that the prisoners were not smuggling any weapons or contraband into their cells after a day’shard labour . It essentially involved thrusting their rectums up into the air for inspection by the warders. Gosani managed to photograph the Tauza dance secretly from the top floor of a nurses’ home overlooking the prison. As a result of the pictures being published in Drum, there was a public outcry and theapartheid government was forced to act. cite news | first= | last= | coauthors= | title=Tauza - Bob Gosani's People | date= | publisher=Struik | url =http://www.struik.co.za/People,%20Art%20&%20Culture/book.book.detail.action?id=1994&curcat=31 | work = | pages = | accessdate = 2007-04-23 | language = ] cite news | first=Mark | last=Gevisser | coauthors= | title=Constitution Hill | date=2003-06-01 | publisher=Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research | url =http://wiserweb.wits.ac.za/PDF%20Files/wiserinbriefjune2003.pdf | work =WISER newsletter | pages = | accessdate = 2007-04-23 | language = |format=PDF]Books
"Tauza - Bob Gosani's People", Jacqui Masiza and Mothobi Mutloatse, Struik, 2005, ISBN 9-78-177007177-3
References
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