Public Intimacy focuses on contemporary artists' explorations of interpersonal relationships, everyday encounters, and other aspects of social life in South Africa. Taking as a starting point SFMOMA's important and growing collection of South African photography, this collaboration with the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts also includes performance, painting, printmaking, sculpture, media art, and graphic design, with an emphasis on the period from 2008 to the present. The exhibition features works by David Goldblatt, William Kentridge, Sabelo Mlangeni, Zanele Muholi, Sello Pesa, and Lindeka Qampi, among others. Looking beyond expected images of South Africa, Public Intimacy reveals fresh and nuanced perspectives on everyday life in a complex, highly charged society undergoing tremendous change.

*image (left)
Terry Kurgan, Hotel Yeoville, 2012;
digital print on bamboo hahnemulle paper;
Courtesy the artist; © Terry Kurgan