“Searching for Africa in LIFE” compiles all 2,128 covers of LIFE Magazine published between 1936 and 1996. For the United States, LIFE was the first and most influential all-photographic news magazine. With over thirteen million weekly readers at its peak, its mission was to provide the country with a window into the world. When LIFE’s publisher, Henry Luce, launched the publication, his stated purpose was “To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events…” However, the scarcity of covers featuring African subjects throughout the magazine’s sixty-year circulation provides an opportunity to reevaluate this claim. “Searching for Africa in LIFE” reflects historical American attitudes about culture and race – attitudes that continue to reverberate today.

Jaar draws on the archive – the complete collection of LIFE Magazine covers – to offer an exploration of the politics of representation in mainstream media and to interrogate our own assumptions about culture and ethnicity. More precisely, Jaar points to the formation and distribution of knowledge around these issues. What emerges in “Searching for Africa in LIFE” is a failure to inform, a failure to represent. The diversity and complexities of a rich culture, in this case, the continent and peoples of Africa, are largely ignored and reduced to a handful of patronizing, exoticising images. “Searching for Africa in LIFE” questions the currency of media constructions by calling attention to the power of material collections to reposition our gaze and to bring to light readings, and mis-readings, of our histories.

Alfredo Jaar is an artist, architect, and filmmaker who considers social injustices and human suffering through thought-provoking installations. Throughout his career Jaar has created compelling work that examines the way we engage with, and represent humanitarian crises. Through photography, film and installation he provokes the viewer to question our thought process around how we view the world around us. Jaar has explored political and social issues, including genocide, the displacement of refugees across borders, and the balance of power between the first and third world. Jaar’s work has been shown extensively around the world.

About Goodman Gallery

Since 1966 Goodman Gallery has championed a leading community of artists who inspire social change. Under South Africa’s apartheid years, the gallery opened its doors to artists of all races, refusing to discriminate against artists of colour and becoming one of the first spaces in the world to exhibit artists who are beginning to gain global recognition as pioneers of 20th Century African Art. Since 2008, under the leadership of owner director Liza Essers, the gallery has expanded to a pioneering global gallery with a robust international programme and additional spaces in Cape Town, London and most recently New York.

About Galerie Hubert Winter

The initial program of Galerie Hubert Winter, founded in 1971, was focused on Surrealism and rare publications from the 1920s, including the work of Henri Michaux, Pierre Klossowski, Antonin Artaud ao. In the 1980s the program expanded to a more contemporary roster and representation of US-born artists including Richard Tuttle, Lawrence Weiner, Haim Steinbach, Richard Nonas and Fred Sandback. From 1983 - 1985 a branch in Düsseldorf was opened and from 1995 - 1999 a space was opened in Berlin. Over the last decade, the gallery has emphasised the work of overlooked female artists, managing the Estate of Birgit Jürgenssen, as well as taking on younger voices.