A black-and-white photograph of a woman standing outdoors between two sections of a chain-link fence. Holding her arms out in a T, with either hand grasping a fencepost, she addresses the camera with a confident gaze. The woman wears a dark pageboy hat and a white polo shirt tucked into a short, plaid skirt. In the background is a low brick building with a slanted roof.
Coming soon

Exhibition David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive

February 21, 2025 – June 22, 2025

David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive is a major traveling retrospective exhibition that spans the seven decades of this South African photographer’s career, from the 1950s to the 2010s, demonstrating Goldblatt’s commitment to showing the realities of daily life in his country. The exhibition and accompanying publication bring together roughly 150 works by Goldblatt from the collections of the Yale University Art Gallery and the Art Institute of Chicago—two major Goldblatt repositories—including his early black-and-white photography and his post-apartheid, large-format color photography. Also included in the exhibition are photographs by some of Goldblatt’s peers, such as Ernest Cole, Santu Mofokeng, and Jo Ractliffe, as well as a generation of younger South Africans, many of whom Goldblatt mentored, including Lebohang Kganye and Zanele Muholi, placing Goldblatt within a broader and intergenerational network of photographers. This ambitious project honors the life and career of an artist who used his work to celebrate his country’s working-class people, the landscape, and the built environment. 

Read more about the exhibition in the fall 2024 magazine (PDF).

A black-and-white photograph of a woman standing outdoors between two sections of a chain-link fence. Holding her arms out in a T, with either hand grasping a fencepost, she addresses the camera with a confident gaze. The woman wears a dark pageboy hat and a white polo shirt tucked into a short, plaid skirt. In the background is a low brick building with a slanted roof.

David Goldblatt, Miriam Diale, 5357 Orlando East, Soweto, 18 October 1972, 1972, printed later. Carbon ink print. Yale University Art Gallery, Purchased with a gift from Jane P. Watkins, M.P.H. 1979; with the Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., Class of 1913, Fund; and with support from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. 
© The David Goldblatt Legacy Trust

A photograph of many identical built structures on a low hill covered in grass the color of sand. The buildings are low to the ground and made from solid blocks that appear tannish-gray in color. Between two windows on the front of each is a door-shaped opening. The structures are without roofs. A light-blue sky occupies the upper third of the image.

David Goldblatt, Incomplete houses, part of a stalled municipal development of 1,000 houses … , 2006, printed later. Pigmented inkjet print. Yale University Art Gallery, Purchased with a gift from Jane P. Watkins, M.P.H. 1979; with the Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., Class of 1913, Fund; and with support from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. © The David Goldblatt Legacy Trust

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Exhibition co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, in collaboration with Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid. Presentation at the Yale University Art Gallery by Judy Ditner, the Richard Benson Associate Curator of Photography and Digital Media. Made possible by generous support from Jane P. Watkins, M.P.H. 1979.