The exhibition at South Africa’s National Gallery in Cape Town offers a spe= ctr
um of insights into a troubled decade. JULIA TEAL reports
LOOKING at the work presently on display at the South African National Gall= ery
, there is an almost tangible sense of the weight that the institution carr= ies
as one of South Africa’s main cultural arbiters. Straddled as it is betwee=
n b eing a state institution – and thus in some sense representative of the sta= te=20
– and at the same time a vehicle for cultural expression, the National Gall= ery
has, in t
he past, been a conduit for the state to impose, if indirectly and somewhat= ph
legmatically, a particular set of cultural values on the public.
Contemporary South African Art 1985 to 1995 bears testimony to a period of = sig
nificant and evolving changes in the National Gallery’s relations to state = and
public, where the vision of artists, their comments and criticisms of thei=
r w orld are valued for their thought-provoking dissonance and potential to dis= rup
t the status quo.=20
In an effort to communicate the nature of this complex transformation to th= e b roadest possible viewing public, the curators have installed PCs that featu= re=20
statements by the director (Marilyn Martin) and the chief curator of the ex= hib
ition (Emma Bedford), as well as a penetrating interview with outgoing chai= r o f the acquisitions committee, Neville Dubow, conducted by the new chair, Ja= ne=20
Taylor.=20
This user-friendly virtual catalogue (the “real” one will appear later this= mo
nth) also contains neat biographical inserts on the artists represented, pr= ovi
ding one with some insight into the whys and wherefores underpinning the pa= rti
cular choice of works represented on this show.
As a whole, the exhibition offers a spectrum of personal insights and comme= nts
on the problem – and it was a problem – of what it was to be South African=
du
ring this particular decade. Some of the work is directly and explicitly po= lem
ical, other work is not as deliberately provocative, but no less telling. R= ead
together, one gets a nuanced and multi-layered visual history that records=
ev
ents, poli tical and social triumphs and tragedies, and the complex underlying current= s o f thought and feeling that were charged by these events.=20
Although many of the works on show are aesthetically seductive, the predomi= nan
t mood is critical – sometimes bitter, often bitingly humorous, occasionall= y l apsing into morbid sentimentality or indulging in post-modern obscurantism = – a nd registers an intense involvement with issues that are common to humanity= gl
obally but became amplified by apartheid politics at the tip of Africa.=20
And it is precisely the haunting beauty and power of the works in the first= ro
om of the gallery that prevents one from lapsing into that familiar depress= ion
that stems from the feeling that the damage to South African society is to=
o d eep to repair, the evils perpetrated too great and the resultant poverty, i= neq
uality and lack of commitment to one another as “one nation” too firmly ent= ren
ched for c hange to be felt in real terms.=20
As one moves further into the exhibition, one finds works that are wonderfu= lly
sassy and upbeat, operatic and over-the-top, highly experimental or brutal=
ly=20
documentary – and one cannot help but feel proud, pleased and encouraged, e= ven
though the subject matter is often so dark and depressing.
This era of social schizophrenia, where one sector of the population lived = in=20
a curious state of denial enthusiastically nurtured by the state, and the o= the
r lived the misery imposed by the first and struggled against it, is well c= ove
red by the exhibition as a whole, though generally from the troubled perspe= cti
ve of the verligte white middle class.
Heading into the 1990s, a shifting set of priorities and perceptions is evi= den
t – meditations on sexuality, HIV and abortion, pushed to the periphery dur= ing
the struggle years, begin to emerge. A luta continua.
But the way the exhibition has been hung tends to dilute the potential of m= any
of the works. They are not arranged in a way that lends any kind of cohere=
nce
to the history they form a part of. This kind of patchwork hanging, where =
oft
en the sole criterion for arrangement appears to be scale, tends to divert = fro
m the socio-political-historical dimension of the exhibition and relegate i= t m ore to the more old-fashioned aesthetic of “good taste”.=20
This is surprising in the light of recent exhibitions staged at the gallery= th
at involved – whatever their shortcomings may have been – radical and stimu= lat
ing transformations of the spaces they occupied. Exhibitions as differently= or
iented as Pippa Skotnes’s Miscast and The Pride of the Ndebele actively int= erf
ered with the standard notions of what ought to be going on within the wall= s o f a Nation al Gallery.=20
It is puzzling that the rhetoric of transformation contained in the catalog= ue=20
for the current exhibition was not translated more concretely into the nitt= y-g
ritty of curatoral practice. Exacerbating this problem are the labels that = pro
vide information about the works. Some do not feature the date of execution= (c
rucial for an exhibition of this kind); occasionally they are altogether ab= sen
t.
It is noteworthy that the collection’s most overtly politicised work of thi= s e ra is predominantly made by white artists, with Willie Bester’s harsh assem= bla
ges of the struggles going on in the townships only emerging as late as 199= 0 a nd being purchased some time thereafter. In his interview with Emma Bedford= an
d Jane Taylor, retiring chair of the selection committee for the gallery, N= evi
lle Dubow, describes the difficulty experienced in convincing the board of directors =
to=20
allow work into the collection that would “rock the boat”.=20
However, through what Dubow neatly refers to as “Trojan horse” tactics of s= ubt
erfuge, the work was somehow collected, or at least some of it was. Polemic= al=20
work by black artists is markedly absent, a disturbing gap and one not easi= ly=20
explained away by stories of censorship and oppressive bureaucracy.=20
Dubow describes how it was the unstated view of the board of directors that= th
e work being made in the townships during the 1980s and falling into the ca= teg
ory of “township style” was at the time considered to be too “commercial” f= or=20
the gallery. Some was purchased, but not much. It may have been a good idea= to
represent some of these works at the exhibition. These could have provided=
ye
t another=20 dimension to the history that underpins the exhibition as a whole, reflecti= ng=20
the irony that artists could turn their oppression and exploitation to adva= nta
ge – even if it were only a short-term cash one.
This points to a deeper set of contradictions that became apparent in tryin= g t o reconcile the stated aims of the director and curator with the work on sh= ow.
In their respective statements, there is an embrace of concepts of nationh=
ood
and the desire for the gallery to function as an active, if critically ale=
rt,
agent within the formation of such an identity.=20
That the permanent collection is dominated by the work of white artists and= by
the priorities and debates of “white art” is not adequately acknowledged o=
r i nterrogated in the catalogue or within the format of the exhibition itself.= Th
e absence, for instance, of a policy of retroactive collecting of the polit= ica
l posters and prints of the struggle years suggests the collection will, at= le
ast for th e moment, remain within this ambit.
Contemporary South African Art 1985 to 1995 is on now at the National Galle= ry=20
in Cape Town
Margaret Vorster’s beautiful three-piece pastel drawing, Sleep of Treason, = tak
es the tradition of the allusive self-portrait and weaves a story about the= wa
y in which the self is implicated in larger brutalities.
It is also pleasing to see seminal works on the collection like Jane Alexan= der
‘s Butcher Boys resonating with other works made during the first five year= s o f the period documented by the exhibition. The tendency to use the work as = a s ensational drawcard has for some time been threatening to dissipate its con= sid
erable impact. Seen in relation to works by artists like Paul Stopforth, Di= ane
Victor, K
eith Deitrich and Stanley Pinker, one gets a feel for the “Weimar-ish” etho= s t hat produced this sculpture – a period of decadence and despair, on one han= d,=20
and brave struggle in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds on the othe= r.=20