Rorke’s Drift (or Sandlwane)—with Measured Thanks

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, the author addresses the problematic mythologising of certain institutional “opportunities” negotiated by black artists during apartheid—notably those associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELC) Art and Craft Centre, Rorke’s Drift—and the inscription of such “opportunities” within South African art historical discourse as originary narratives of white beneficence, at the expense of black subjective agency and self-authorship. The refusal of bestowal (or “measured thanks”) articulated by artists such as Cyprian Shilakoe and Azaria Mbatha calls for, as the author argues, something more than a diligent programme of historical revision—rather, it warrants another form of appreciation altogether. This involves a relational and imaginative stepping in to what Olu Oguibe calls a “terrain of difficulty” (The Culture Game, 2004. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 11) and an acknowledgement there of the multiple transactions by which black artists have navigated an institutionalised art economy of non-opportunity. Turning to recent curatorial projects by Thembinkosi Goniwe, Gabi Ngcobo, Yvette Mutumba, and Same Mdluli, the author considers ways in which their various (and alternative) approaches to “black art histories” enable the possibility of a more open, inhabited and less historically fixed appreciation.