Billy Monk

The other day I received a mail about the Hilbrow book (another amazing book) that I own, the person contacting me wanted to find out where they could get their hands on one and in the process landed up telling me about another super interesting South African photography book about a bouncer/photographer called Billy Monk. I looked the book up and then ordered it immediately.

In the late 60’s Billy worked as a nightclub bouncer for the notorious Catacombs club in the dock area of Cape Town where he started taking pictures of people for extra money. He took photos of all types, society girls, gangsters, pimps, prostitutes and sailors. And the pictures are amazing, they make you feel like you have a 2-way mirror into a era and world that is forever lost in his pictures.

– Using a Pentax camera with 35mm focal-length lens, Billy Monk photographed the nightclub revellers and sold the prints to his subjects. His close and long friendships with many of the people in the images allowed him to photograph them with extraordinary intimacy in all their states of joy and sadness. His images of nightlife seem carefree and far away from the scars and segregation of apartheid that fractured this society in the daylight.

10 years later Billy Monk’s amazing photographs were discovered by Jac de Villiers, who he then arranged an exhibition of his work. Billy couldn’t make the actual opening and 2 weeks later en route to the exhibition in Johannesburg he was shot dead in a fight, never to see or hear the praise that his work would earn.

– Since the images were first seen in 1982, they have been critically acclaimed and celebrated on the rare occasions that they have been shown. The images raise the question why they continue to resonate so strongly with viewers 40 years later, and it is perhaps because of the remarkable pathos and empathy Billy Monk had for his subjects, regardless of their disposition, circumstances and transgressions.