[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy_ri7XJik0&w=500&h=281&rel=0]

Via Todd Johnson: Opening on Thursday, July 15, at the Studio Museum in Harlem, some new work by South African photographer, Zwelethu Mthethwa. (For the opening night, Mthethwa will be present for a conversation with curator Naomi Beckwith.  It’s free, but you got to RSVP.)

The works are on display till October 24.

Here’s the description from the Museum:

Zwelethu Mthethwa: Inner Views brings together three series by South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa (b. 1960). “Interiors” and “Empty Beds” document the domestic lives of migrant workers around Johannesburg, South Africa, while “Common Ground” focuses on the shared experience of natural disasters in urban areas, featuring houses in New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, after wildfires.”

* The video above is the highlight reel of a fascinating 4-part video conversation between Mthethwa and Okwei Enwezor, hosted recently by the Aperture Foundation. Links to parts one, two, three and four.

— Sean Jacobs

Further Reading

Goodbye, Piassa

The demolition of an historic district in Addis Ababa shows a central contradiction of modernization: the desire to improve the country while devaluing its people and culture.