Whitespeak: How Race Works in South African Art Criticism Texts to Maintain the Arts as the Property of Whiteness (original) (raw)
Related papers
2006
In this thesis I deconstruct key concepts, terminologies, and rhetorical conventions employed in white South African writing on modern black art. I trace the genealogy of the dominant discursive practices of the apartheid era to the cultural discourses of the colonial era, which in turn had their origins in the Enlightenment. This genealogical tracing aims to demonstrate that South African art writing of the 20th century partook of a tradition of Western writing that was primarily intent upon producing the Western subject as a rational Enlightenment agent via the debased objectification of the colonial Other. In the process of the deconstruction, I identify the most significant discursive shifts that occurred from the 1930’s, when the first publications emerged, to the 1990’s, when South Africa’s new political dispensation opened up a different cultural landscape.
When Moshekwa Langa’s eponymous solo exhibition opened in Johannesburg in 1995, it was hailed as turning point in South African art as it appeared to mark the entry of the first black South African artist working within a neo-conceptualist rubric. Untrained and hailing from a rural locale, years earlier Langa’s art would most likely have been deemed unprogressive or “traditional”. Borrowing from Arnold van Gennep’s (cited by Turner 1969) notion of ‘reaggregation’ – the final phase of a rite of passage, where the subject transcends the liminal phase, in this article I explore the shifts that facilitated Langa’s provisional inclusion, while unpacking the manner in which his identity paradoxically served to ensure his liminal status. Olu Oguibe (2004) suggests that African artists can resist this position through acts of self-definition. Langa avoided this route; he was complicit in constructing his liminal identity. He challenged reaggregation via an ironic reenaction of reintegration as a universalist subject in a photographic body of work that responded to the skewed reception of his 1995 exhibition. Meditating on this landmark moment in South African art history, I demonstrate how terms and labels used to “elevate” or culturally position Langa’s art, such as the neo-conceptualist tag, were fundamental to his art being reaggregated by the predominately white artworld, although it was to some degree an uneasy fit. Other theoretical frameworks used to usher his work into the canon of the contemporary, such as a notion of African conceptualism, as proposed by Salah Hassan and Oguibe (2001) are explored. So, too, are the intricacies and flaws involved in “inclusionary” or corrective processes instigated by the same authorities that played a role in determining exclusionary paradigms. Van Gennep and Victor Turner’s theory of liminality proves useful in mapping the mechanics of aggregation and the position of the liminal subject, but, as I demonstrate in this article, it cannot sufficiently contextualise imposed notions of liminality as ascribed to African artists by Eurocentric writers who privilege inclusion into occidental canons above others.
This study uses my artistic practice to explore and critique my own lived experiences as a person of colour (POC) in South Africa, specifically focusing on being a woman within this context. In exploring this in my practice, I draw from contemporary artists that use reimagination, reclamation and re-representation in their work and contemporary artists that implement archival methods in their practice. The criteria used to select contemporary artists used in this study was based on the conceptual and practical nature of the artists’ works. Consequently, the chosen artists explore themes of POC experiences and address representation. Reflecting on my personal lived experiences as a South African woman, POC plays a significant role in my practical work. As a politically Black, culturally Coloured1 South African woman, I artistically explore the formation of my intersectional identity, how I navigate acceptance and belonging in this context and how my identity can be reclaimed or reima...
Art, critique and liberation in post-apartheid South Africa
Conference presentation, 2013
This article revisits some of the controversies and debates that arose in 2012 surrounding works by South African artist Brett Murray, in particular his painting The Spear. Against the rather unanimous criticism of these works, it attempts a more nuanced and instructive assessment of these works’ political value, especially since some of the underlying issues remain largely unresolved and continue to haunt debates on political art in South Africa. A second aim of the article is to test the usefulness of some key concepts and arguments in contemporary work of French philosopher Jacques Rancière on aesthetics and politics for such an assessment. The article first applies Rancière’s theory of historical regimes of art to attempt a deep understanding of the fundamental assumptions and views concerning art that clashed in debates surrounding Murray’s works. It then considers two common, interconnected accusations of these works. One that considers their content to hold deeply counter-revolutionary views on political transformation, the other that they undermine genuine attempts at bridging the deep divisions of South African society. Finally, it examines Murray’s art in light of Rancière’s critique of what he calls the traditional critical art paradigm. Although the latter is held to add a valid and innovative register of critical analysis of the political status of art works, the article argues that if applied in monolithic fashion to Murray’s work, it also somehow misrecognizes the latter’s specific political mode and potential, a criticism that also holds for other criticisms considered in the article.
THE ROOTS OF BLACK POST-APARTHEID ART IN SOUTH AFRICA
My message is directed to the man in the street, hence I use symbols he can easily identify with such as a reference book, a Bible, chains, a primus stove, and so forth. I regard art as a weapon against injustice.
“The shortcoming of this project is...”: reimagining the role of the artist’s book in South Africa
Troubling Legacies. South African Visual Arts Historians, 2018
Despite the web-based research project Artists’ Books in South Africa receiving the best Digital Humanities: Visualisation prize at this year’s NIHSS Awards, it was criticised for “... a shortage of black artists’ work, hence its social relevance can be seen to be for a particular section of the South African population”. I respond to this criticism by unpacking its assumptions and expectations for change. Of significance are two speculations: firstly, how such a viewpoint might be changed when browsing the multi-faceted aspects of local artist’s book practice as reflected on the website. Secondly, how the project might begin to transcend its remit of reflecting South African practice by supporting change in the demographics of local artist’s book makers. Artists’ books are often misunderstood as a genre, fugitive as a practice and uncomfortable in both library and art collections. I explore their difficult relationship with three hegemonic traditions: authoritativeness, artmaking and collecting by contemplating these characteristics in relation to Chris Reinder’s project, The Decolonisation of the Book and Rangoato Hlasane’s Keleketla! Library initiative in which the book is removed from its hegemonic position of authority and reimagined as having new roles to play in local cultural, artistic and academic life.
Black (Art) Consciousness, Art Africa, Issue 09, September 2017
Art Africa, 2017
Published by Art Africa in the 'Liberation is Not Deliverance' issue, this article explores the similarities and differences between the exhibitions 'Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power' showing at Tate London from 12 July - 22 October 2017, and 'The Place is Here' showing at South London Gallery from 22 June - 10 September 2017.
The Artistic Traditions of Non-European Cultures, Vol. 5, 2018
The interest in African art is continual for Europeans, although its face is changing – the forms and practices it entails, and from which it surges. The constant moment of this interest is the call to identify oneself in front of the Other. This Other has been differently defined in colonial and postcolonial times, being strongly discriminated and subjugated to the European subject, abused and exploited, much later beginning the process of emancipation. Africa, along with America and Asia, was presented as savage, primitive, sometimes as beautiful (in Western categories), or as spiritual. These forms of identification were constructed in the texts of anthropologists, geographers, explorers, photographers, and others, and in images – mainly in photographs and in drawings. The discussions held around African art show the problematic status of representation: Who is representing whom? How? For what reasons? Is the person/group represented active in the creation of their representation, or are they a passive object represented from the outside, by someone else possessing the power and means of representation? What I am mostly interested in are specific strategies used the redefine the African subject in postcolonial situation. Strategies that I note are: de-construction of oppressive racial categories, which is the subject of Berni Searle’s work; re-inscription and transformation of colonial images and memories which haunt contemporary living bodies, found in Kitso Lynn Lelliott’s and Mary Sibande’s artistic realizations; and representations of the hybrid, mixed, non-normative South African subjects, as presented in photographs by Lauren Mulligan.