Reviews

1. “Mark Lewis’s distinctive depth of field.” Read this fine review of Mark Lewis’s work in the Wake Up this is Joburg series: “Mark Lewis ghosts through the streets of inner-city Joburg with his camera, often catching people off guard, between heartbeats, between coughing and choking, between laughing hard and falling down.” https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/life/art/2017-12-21-photography-mark-lewiss-distinctive-depth-of-field/ 2. Terry […]

Terry Kurgan’s “Everyone is Present” by Africa in Word

Scholar and writer Andrew van der Vlies has written an insightful, in-depth review of Terry Kurgan’s new book: “Terry Kurgan is one of South Africa’s most accomplished and sophisticated theorists of her own photographic practice. Her projects, both studio-based and publicly engaged, have frequently explored the mediations of power relations at play in domestic photography. […]

Why South African art books matter

A lovely feature article by Garreth van Niekerk from City Press. Below is an extract from Why South African art books matter: Independent publishing in this country is a rare thing, and South African independent art book publishing is even rarer. Garreth van Niekerk gets his hands on the latest releases from Fourthwall Books, which […]

Home, family and intimacy in recent writings on and from South Africa

Hotel Yeoville is featured in review article, Home, family and intimacy in recent writings on and from South Africa. Here is an extract from the article: In recent works on intimacy and home in South Africa, scholars question the assumptions about where ‘home’ ends, and who counts as ‘family’. In calls for curriculum change and […]

Announcing the launch of Commonplace

In its presentation of private images from two very different family photo collections, this unusual book highlights the small details—the commonplaces— of everyday life often forgotten in the larger narrative of South African history. The Ngilima collection is the combined work of Ronald Ngilima and his son Thorence, ambulant black photographers who photographed life in […]

Aperture and Fourthwall Books Contemporary African Portraiture Event

FRIDAY 18TH NOVEMBER at 6.00 PM at our Pop Up shop at 44 Stanley, Milpark. Save the date! We are co-hosting an event with Aperture Foundation NY. Coinciding with the Black Portraiture[s] Conference in Johannesburg, join editors, artists and contributors to Fourthwall Books and Aperture magazine for a special reception celebrating new publications of contemporary […]

Platinum shortlisted at Les Rencontres d’Arles 2016.

We are thrilled to announce that our publication “Platinum”, with photos by Jason Larkin and text by Jack Shenker, has been shortlisted for the Photo-Text Award at Les Rencontres d’Arles 2016. Winner to be announced this Friday 8th !! The book examines the Marikana massacre and the physical and political context of the communities of […]

Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign

We’ve just launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign! Help us to publish the last four books in this photobook series of Johannesburg stories by Tanya Zack and Mark Lewis. Our readers have loved the stories that get close up to the city’s secret and not so secret worlds. So much so that the first six books […]

Photobook, January, 2016

We are delighted to announce that Joana Choumali (Ivory Coast) and George Mahashe (South Africa) are the joint winners of the 2016 Fourthwall Books Photobook Award. In selecting Choumali’s work Hââbré: The Last Generation, the jury remarked on the strength of these portraits of men and women with facial scarification. The subjects of Choumali’s photographs may, […]

Award, November, 2015

We are bursting with pride! It has just been announced at the awards ceremonies in Cape Town that our publication Nagmusiek by Stephanus Muller has won both the 2015 Kyknet Rapport book prize for non-fiction AND the 2015 Jan Rabie Rapport prize for fiction ! This is an extraordinary and unprecedented event!