South African National Gallery Research Articles

Chéri Samba

Research Article| May 01 2023 Chéri Samba: Kinshasa Kingpin Riason Naidoo Riason Naidoo Riason Naidoo is a researcher, artist, and former director of the South African National Gallery (2009-2015). Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Nka (2023) 2023 (52): 34–43. https://doi.org/10.1215/10757163-10434966 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Citation Riason Naidoo; Chéri Samba: Kinshasa Kingpin. Nka 1 May 2023; 2023 (52): 34–43. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10757163-10434966 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsNka Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2020 New Frame (Johannesburg)2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

PLAN B, a Gathering of Strangers (or) This Is Not Working by Goldendean

PLAN B, a Gathering of Strangers (or) This Is Not Working by Goldendean

“Africa's First Woman Press Photographer”: Mabel Cetu's Photographs in Zonk!

“Africa's First Woman Press Photographer”: Mabel Cetu's Photographs in <i>Zonk!</i>

Güney Afrika Ulusal Sanat Galerisi’nin Sosyal Değişimdeki Rolü - “Beyaz Küp”ün Değişimi

This article traces the South African National Gallery’s (SANG) journey through social transformation in South Africa. As South Africa transformed from pre-colonization, colonization and apartheid, to a post-apartheid state, this state art museum itself transformed, sometimes parallel to these changes, sometimes earlier. The museum was established as a colonial structure, but went through a process of transformation. As a national museum, it represented the state by default. Through several processes and curatorial championship such as Heritage Day, inheriting artwork from the Ethnographic Museum, and various socially-engaged projects, inclusion of black South African curators, the museum managed to transform itself into a more democratic institution. This is significant when studying museology, social transformations, postcoloniality, ideas of a white-wall white cube art museum, “primitive” art, and other fields as it touches upon and affects each of them and shows how these concepts can be better understood by studying their relation to one another, especially in the context of South Africa.

William Kentridge: Process as Metaphor &amp; Other Doubtful Enterprises

William Kentridge: Process as Metaphor &amp; Other Doubtful Enterprises

“Dada South? Experimentation, Radicalism and Resistance”: Dada’s Legacies from South African Perspectives

In 2016, the art world celebrated the Dada centenary with festivities all over the globe; the interest in the European avant-garde movement appears stronger than ever. As long as six years ago, the exhibition “Dada South? Experimentation, Radicalism and Resistance” took place in the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town and made a significant contribution to the discourse on Dada in the global context. “Dada South?” opened up an intriguing position in a highly topical discourse. The show engaged in central issues of the current discussions on global art practice and opened the view to the North-South axis of Dadaist practice. The exhibition considered Dada’s legacies in relation to performance, counter-rational strategies, collectivity, deconstruction, and resistance in South African art practice and discursively engaged in the discussion of a global understanding of art and art history. However, the show was barely noticed in the international context. Especially regarding the current interest in Dada, and in the context of the discourse on global art and exhibition practice, “Dada South?” must be brought into focus. In this paper, the exhibition design and objective are analysed and the significance of the exhibition in the global context is addressed.

A Nomad's Harvest, Iziko South African National Gallery (ISANG), Cape Town March 5–July 9, 2014

<b>A Nomad's Harvest</b>, Iziko South African National Gallery (ISANG), Cape Town March 5–July 9, 2014

Civilising the Cape: Public Art Exhibitions and Cape Visual Culture, 1851–1910

Public art galleries in South Africa, in particular the South African National Gallery in Cape Town, owe their establishment to the energetic debates on the role of art and public art galleries that were prevalent in Europe during the 19th century. These debates focused on the ability of art to educate and civilise, and such ideas travelled along imperial networks to the Cape and Australia, where they were negotiated in local contexts. At the Cape, a series of public art exhibitions was initiated with the intent of establishing a permanent art collection and gallery, the ultimate aim being to provide a space in which to cultivate taste and civility in the general public. But the visual culture that emerged from these exhibitions was focused predominantly on local or British landscape and genre. Similarly, in the collection established for Cape Town's permanent gallery, later the national gallery, there was very little grand narrative art or art of the past characteristic of other national galleries. A culture of informality prevailed instead. It is argued that the commitment to nature painting in the Cape and elsewhere in South Africa stemmed from an indifference or antipathy to the metropolitan culture on which major international art galleries were based, compromising the professionalism and status of these local art institutions. A comparative analysis of some of the galleries of Australia, the Cape's colonial rival, reveals that they received far greater support and demonstrated far greater professionalism than their South African counterparts.

Umhlaba 1913–2013

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Umhlaba was opened at Iziko South African National Gallery in tandem with a major conference, Land Divided 2013, organised by three Western Cape universities, through the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape; the Centre for Law and Society at the University of Cape Town; and the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology along with the Land, Environment and Society in Africa Research Programme at Stellenbosch University. From the end of August 2013, it will move to the Witwatersrand Art Museum. The text of this essay is drawn from material produced by Chas Unwin, the researcher for the Umhlaba exhibition.

From Asia to Africa: Tretchikoff, the People’s Painter

This article reviews an exhibition of the works of Vladimir Griegorovich Tretchikoff (1913–2006) that was mounted at the Iziko South African National Gallery in May 2011. Nwafor suggests that the posthumous show marked a turning point in Tretchikoff’s artistic career by bringing his works, for the first time, into the art establishment that initially rejected him.

Art activism in South Africa and the ethics of representation in a time of AIDS

In South Africa, art activism plays an important role in the fight against HIV/AIDS. During the past number of years the South African National Gallery (SANG) has staged several events where works of art were commissioned to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The article discusses how the activist strategies of the SANG draw on two distinct traditions when combatting the AIDS epidemic by means of art. These two traditions are found in the SANG's legacy in the resistance art movement during the fight against apartheid, and in the resources of its networking strategies with the AIDS activist movement in general, and more specifically the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). The article explores the different roots of ‘artworks against AIDS’ and highlights its findings with short overviews of the SANG's exhibitions held between 2001 and 2007. The article also discusses how both the SANG and the TAC benefitted from the ‘social movement spill-over effect’ (Epstein 1996), which enabled them to use their previous activist structures and resources in order to embark on the struggle against HIV/AIDS. Although the art activist strategies are successful in getting the art world's attention to respond to the effects of HIV/AIDS, the article suggests that in light of the ever-changing landscape that characterises the epidemic, art activists are challenged to continually reinvent their strategies of engagement. Advances in treatment options play a significant role in shaping new meanings and forms of social mobilisation that influence the signifying practices driving activist strategies. The need for an ‘ethics of representational practices’ that is sensitive to changes in the landscape, offers art activists a renewed basis from which to act when engaging with the complexities of mediating the realities of people's lived experiences in the time of HIV/AIDS.

Is There Still Life?: Continuity and Change in South African Still Life Painting by Michael Godby. Cape Town, Iziko: South African National Gallery, date. 64 pages, 84 color illustrations, Further reading. R120, soft cover.

<b>Is There Still Life?: Continuity and Change in South African Still Life Painting</b> by Michael Godby. Cape Town, Iziko: South African National Gallery, date. 64 pages, 84 color illustrations, Further reading. R120, soft cover.

From Loss of Objects to Recovery of Meanings: Online Museums and Indigenous Cultural Heritage

The debate about the responsibility of museums to respect Indigenous peoples’ rights (Kelly and Gordon; Butts) has caught our attention on the basis of our previous research experience with regard to the protection of the tangible and intangible heritage of the San (former hunter gatherers) in Southern Africa (Martin and Vermeylen; Vermeylen, Contextualising; Vermeylen, Life Force; Vermeylen et al.; Vermeylen, Land Rights). This paper contributes to the critical debate about curatorial practices and the recovery of Indigenous peoples’ cultural practices and explores how museums can be transformed into cultural centres that “decolonise” their objects while simultaneously providing social agency to marginalised groups such as the San.

Hidden treasures in ivory towers: The untapped wealth of South African university art collections

This article takes as its point of departure the ongoing financial difficulties of the South African National Gallery (SANG), reviewing the reasons that may account for its precarious status. Often at odds with those in political power, this institution has never gained financial support from the powers that be, and in turn, the majority of its visitors have typically come from a specific demographic. It is the argument of this article that as a result of this situation, universities in South Africa have found themselves in a unique position in which to empower and educate those who may not otherwise have access to artworks, and this should be actively pursued. While globally many university art collections enjoy a prominent status within their communities, and are well endowed and visited, their South African counterparts are sorely underused and undervalued. Thus, the aim of the study is twofold: in the first instance, an argument is made for the positive and productive role South African university art collections could play within their society, and secondly, primary research undertaken at several universities reveals the rich and varied collections held throughout the country.

‘Can't forget, can't remember’: reflections on the cultural afterlife of the TRC1

This paper focuses on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an ongoing process of collective memory and public culture. Rather than concentrating on the actual TRC hearings themselves, it focuses on artistic and cultural mediations of this process. It explores the ways in which the South African artist Sue Williamson has engaged with the contradictions, ambiguities and silences of the TRC process. Williamson's work on the TRC, which was exhibited in the South African National Gallery in 2004 as part of the Decade of Democracy Exhibition, reflects upon the ‘grey zones’ and limits of the TRC's nation building efforts. The paper is divided into three sections. The first section locates the TRC, as a state ritual of nation building, within the broader anthropological literature on ritual. The second section situates Sue Williamson's work within academic debates on the TRC. The final section focuses on Williamson's work in the context of the role of museums and art galleries as spaces of nation building.

FRESH: ARTIST’S RESIDENCY PROGRAM: South African National Gallery

Other| May 01 2007 FRESH: ARTIST’S RESIDENCY PROGRAM: South African National Gallery Ruth Kerkham Ruth Kerkham Ruth Kerkham is a Doctoral Candidate in African Art History at Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Nka (2007) 2007 (21): 122–123. https://doi.org/10.1215/10757163-21-1-122 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Ruth Kerkham; FRESH: ARTIST’S RESIDENCY PROGRAM: South African National Gallery. Nka 1 May 2007; 2007 (21): 122–123. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10757163-21-1-122 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsNka Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2007 Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art2007 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Reviews You do not currently have access to this content.

The art of nation-building: (re)presenting political transition at the South African National Gallery

This paper examines the relationship between museums and representations of national identity in South Africa. From their early development in Western Europe in the nineteenth century there has been a close relationship between museums and other exhibitionary spaces and the production of national identities. In South Africa, museum displays have historically supported colonial and apartheid ideologies, but with the transition to a post-apartheid society museums have reassessed their divisive roles and repositioned themselves within South Africa’s contemporary nation-building project, organized around building unity from diversity. The development of this new relationship between museums and democratic nation-building is examined here through discussing the attempts of South Africa’s museums to become more inclusive in their exhibitions, and analysing debates in the museological community concerning the challenges facing museums in a post apartheid society. These issues then inform an analysis of an exhibition at the South African National Gallery titled Contemporary South African art 1985-1995. The exhibition attempted to use art to document the political transition and contribute to building national unity. However, by discussing the political operation of classification in museums I argue that the exhibition ultimately fails to represent this period inclusively, and I question, more generally, the possibility of art museums engaging in a properly inclusive nation-building project.

“Civilised Off the Face of the Earth”: Museum Display and the Silencing of the /Xam

The end of apartheid in South Africa initiated a period of intense analysis of historical and contemporary questions of identity. In the Cape, people who had been classified as “coloured” or “other coloured”began to reclaim their precolonial identities. This process has been made difficult by wide-scale language death during the twentieth century and the accompanying death of cultural traditions. In the case of the first people of South Africa, the bushmen, this process was further complicated by their depiction in museum exhibits and displays as “living fossils,”alienated from history and culture. This article examines these stereotypes and the historical circumstances that gave rise to them. As a counterpoint it looks at an extraordinary archive of nineteenth-century folklore that was created through a unique collaboration between settler and native. Finally it examines an exhibit mounted in 1996 at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town in which bushman identity was held up to scrutiny and the prevailing stereotypes confronted.

Miscast: The place of the museum in negotiating the Bushman past and present

THERE ARE TWO museums in South Africa competing for representation and commentary on `who are the Bushmen?'. The South African Museum and the South African National Gallery, situated across from each other in Cape Town's Company Gardens, combine efforts to concretise a debate regarding how the indigenous categories, `Bushman' and `Khoisan' (1), can be publicly represented. The two museums draw together different and changing historical relationships to these categories as well as the practice of museum display and exhibition. On the one hand, the SA Museum (a natural history museum), with its turn-of-the-century-built dioramas of Bushmen frozen in primordial time, reminds us of the colonial era ethnologist whose vocation it was to preserve the promise of a more authentic relationship between man and nature. While, on the other hand, the National Gallery, an art museum, offers a critique of the exibitionary enterprise which made museum representations and practices, such as those found in the SA Museum, a naturalised source and display of information. Patricia Davison, the Assistant Director of the SA Museum, says, It is hoped that the present exhibition [at the National Gallery] will set up a dialogue, as it were, with the diorama [at the SA Museum]. Together, these exhibits have inspired heated dialogue and debate around a multitude of issues facing contemporary South Africans, and testify to the important role of public culture in actively shaping both ethnic and national boundaries. This paper will focus primarily on one exhibit, namely the Miscast exhibit that opened in Cape Town's National Gallery on April 12, 1996. By documenting the negotiation process now unfolding in the spaces between and within the National Gallery and the SA Museum, this paper will look at how public culture and the museum (i.e., the National Gallery) contribute to the crafting of national and ethnic boundaries. More specifically, we examine the limitations and ambiguities of cultural critique deployed in the interrogation of museum and representational practices. The primary obstacle to the Miscast curator's vision of a break with the past is the fact that in South Africa the colonial past rests too heavily on its present. As a result of this continuity, many of the visitors to this exhibit at the National Gallery (2) found themselves unable to extricate and distance themselves from the discomfort emanating from their identification with the representations of Bushmen subjects drawn on for this exhibit. South Africa's rapidly changing political climate has drawn the Museum into efforts to dismantle the icons, lexicons, and artifacts of apartheid through the installation of exhibits and displays which interrogate the past with a strategically critical eye. The exhibit analyzed here is one that has drawn historically silenced and marginalised groups into the legitimated and powerful domain of the state Museum, enabling them to participate in their own public cultural representations. The exhibitionary politics brought into being by the debates between these two Museums and their constituent publics invites the language of racial-ethnic difference, the nation's need to heal, reclaim, and revise its past, as well as the impulse to propel contemporary social boundaries into interaction with a newly forged democratic public sphere. Circulating between the two museums are a whole host of publics bringing diverse local readings to bear on a debate which has been unfolding among academics for many years (3). The natural history museum (SA Museum), as a continuous, legitimated, and even celebrated space of representation, has been central to the codification of scientific visual and textual meaning. The National Gallery, by the same token has contributed to the codification of the nation through artistic representation. The opening and democratising of the public sphere of these museums provide a lens through which we can observe individuals coming together as active brokers of the boundaries of the public and dominant cultural frameworks. …

Redressing past cultural biases and imbalances in South Africa: a contribution by the Library of the South African National Gallery

Legislation in South Africa now provides for the inclusion of arts and culture and adult literacy in the education system and art libraries can help promote this Government initiative by distributing their resources widely. The Library of the South African National Gallery is playing an unusual and non-traditional role in helping redress past inequities. It uses visual art, with its concern with expression and communication, to encourage adult learning and stimulate articulacy by encouraging learners to ‘read’ texts from the mass media and visual artworks in order to develop skills in all kinds of literacy. SANG’s project shows how language and artworks can be linked together productively, contributing to the basic education and training of adults.