Figures and Fictions presents the work of 17 South African photographers, all of whom are currently living and working in the country. It features works produced between 2000 and 2010, as the first flush of post-democratic euphoria begins to fade. While the old fixed categories of black and white no longer hold, they have not easily been displaced by the ideal of a post-racial rainbow nation of citizens and subjects. In this fascinating and fraught political context, a new generation of outstanding photographers have joined the established doyens of South African image makers to produce startling and compelling work. The book and exhibition include renowned practitioners David Goldblatt and Santu Mofokeng, mid-career stars Guy Tillim, Pieter Hugo, Zwelethu Methethwa, Berni Searle, Jodi Bieber, and Terry Kurgan, and newcomers to the international stage Zanele Muholi, Hassan and Husain Essop, Roelof van Wyk, Graeme Williams, Kudzanai Chiurai, and Sabelo Mlangeni. Tamar Garb is Durning Lawrence Professor in the History of Art, and head of the History of Art History department at University College London. She has written widely on portraiture and the body in nineteenth century art and visual culture, on contemporary art and on issues of race and representation. Key publications include Bodies of Modernity: Figure and Flesh in Fin de Siecle France (1994) and The Painted Face: Portraits of Women in France 1814 1914 (2007).

She was curator in 2008 of the exhibition Land Marks/ Home Lands: Contemporary Art from South Africa at the Haunch of Venison Gallery and of Gauguin: Maker of Myth at Tate Modern (2010) and The National Gallery of Art, Washington.