ROSPHOTO and Juhan Kuus Documentary Photo Centre (Tallinn, Estonia) present a retrospective exhibition of the work by Juhan Kuus, the internationally renowned photographer of Estonian descent who was born and worked in South Africa.
The exhibition is a comprehensive overview of the creative legacy of Juhan Kuus. Yet, the curators have particularly focused on the period between 1986 and 1999 when Kuus worked as the South African correspondent and photojournalist for the prominent French agency, Sipa Press. It was then that his most prominent works were created, exploring the tumult of the apartheid regime, resistance movement, release of Nelson Mandela and his way towards the presidency of the South African Republic. Juhan Kuus started working as a photo reporter at the age of 17, and developed into one of the most influential and radical photographers of South Africa during his 45-year-long career. His photos, which were taken with utter devotion, direct poignancy and unyieldingly close contact to what he was shooting, found their way into the world’s leading newspapers, journals, exhibitions and photo festivals. He received dozens of awards, and is the only photographer of Estonian descent ever to have received the most prestigious press photo award in the world: the World Press Photo Award, which he won twice, in 1978 and 1992.
Robben Island Prison. President Bill Clinton with Nelson Mandela in Mandela’s old prison cell. South Africa. 27 March 1998
A placard during a parade of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) for the celebration of Republic Day. Pretoria, Transvaal Province, South Africa. 29 May 1993
Blacks are trying to accelerate the abolition of segregation in public places. “Petty apartheid” in buses and pools tends to disappear. Pool in Johannesburg, South Africa. 30 September 1988
Anti-apartheid unrest. Cape Town, South Africa. 1985
However, his best works are not limited to news photography. First and foremost, he considered himself to be an anthropologist-documentarian, whose photos narrate deeply humane stories about South African people, regardless of their racial background. His photos depict the joys and concerns of simple people, their everyday lives and traditions, the relationship between man and land, the prevailing social norms and taboos… Juhan Kuus was always looking for humaneness and trying to see the reasons behind a person’s behaviour, attitudes and choices.
On display at ROSPHOTO are around one hundred works by the prominent photo reporter.
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Born in Cape Town, 27 February 1953, in the Republic of South Africa. His father, Harry Kuus, is an Estonian from Tartu, who escaped to South Africa after the Second World War. His mother, Elsa Barbara Maree, is a South African. Sister Nicole da Silva and brother Michael Kuus. In 1976 married Mareta du Plessis, divorced 2000. Died on 12th of July 2015 after falling down a flight of stairs in the St Monica shelter in which he was living.
While in standard 7 (high school), dropped out to join the staff of the Cape Town newspaper Die Burger as a darkroom assistant, messenger, cleaner and junior photographer. After that he worked as a photographer for the newspapers Die Burger, Afrikaans Sunday national newspaper, Rapport, Die Beeld, The Rand Daily Mail, and The Sunday Times.
Worked for the Paris/New York picture agency Sipa Press as a South African correspondent and photojournalist. The Sunday Times fired him when they found out. Sipa Press terminated Juhan’s freelance contract after Nelson Mandela had stepped down as president of South Africa at the end of 1999, citing the fact that world interest had moved away from South Africa and South Africa was no longer a story.
Concentrated on concerned humanist/social documentary photography, with an emphasis on the growing gangsterism and crime, as well as the downtrodden.
Picture editor/photographer on the Cape Town homeless people’s magazine The Big Issue.
Moved to the Western Cape province town of Oudtshoorn, working as a leather cutter, along with his father Harry Kuus. While in Oudtshoorn, he focused on the plight of the exploited farm worker.
Picture editor of the Cape Town daily newspaper, Die Burger.
Returned to freelancing.
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