Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now

Many of the 'usual suspects' are included, as well as some of their signature works. But there are surprises as well, such as Wild Boar, an early effort by Norman Catherine. The reduced black and white palette of this 1968 linoleum cut is strikingly different from Catherine’s recognized style. Even so, the assertive presence of the beast’s head and forequarters and the densely agitated background hints at the colourful and chaotic representational mode he later developed. And Sue Williamson’s Freedom Charter T-shirt (1986) highlights MoMA’s catholic approach to printed art as well as the commitment of Williamson and other socially engaged artists to reach beyond museum walls or billboards to publicize notable ideas and personages that were absent from the mainstream media. (A companion design, not included in this show, featured Winnie along with Nelson Mandela, whose image was banned at the time; skittish shop owners refused to stock it, and Williamson and Bruce Gordon had to informally market it on their own). 

The beating heart of 'Impressions' occupies a wall in the first of three exhibition spaces. John Muafangejo’s magisterial Natal Where Art School Is (1974) anchors a selection of six additional linocuts: works by Rorke’s Drift students Charles Nkosi, Azaria Mbatha and Dan Rakgoathe appear to the right, balanced with selections by Sandile Goje, Nomathemba Tana, and the aforementioned Norman Catherine piece to the left. Muafangejo’s complex rendering of spatial and mental topographies skillfully captures the divide between Zululand and Natal, with the ELC Art and Craft Centre at Rorke’s Drift literally straddling cultures, ethnicities and aesthetic practices at one remarkable, creative site.  At the same time, he provides the link between ongoing traditions and subsequent generations of South African printmakers.

Curator Judith B. Hecker also draws a vital arterial connection between the revered Muafangejo and contemporary artists towards the end of the exhibition via Cameron Platter’s The Battle of Rorke’s Drift at Club Dirty Den. Platter’s large black and white pencil drawing (2009) playfully riffs on Muafangejo’s 1981 depiction of the bloody clash between the British and local Zulus during the Anglo-Boer War.  Here the theatre of battle is transmogrified into a glitzy shebeen/casino: warriors become lemur-eyed spear chuckers in a hallucinatory and hectic cross-hatched landscape.  Platter summons this historical allusion to satirize the consumerist and all too commonly self-destructive culture that has developed within this long-disputed terrain.  

The lion's share of 'Impressions' embraces a variety of moods and themes. Sandile Goje’s Meeting of Two Cultures (1993) delightfully captures the sense of optimism marking the birth of the 'rainbow nation' and the dream of racial reconciliation. Viewed today, the breach between the hale and hearty suburban dwelling and the gaunt rondavel seems as wide as ever, their peace-making handshake now a mocking gesture. And Kudzanai Chiurai’s posters and wall stencils (2008-2009) draw attention to neighboring Zimbabwe’s dizzying social freefall under a brutal political dictatorship.  

Jo Ractliffe’s 'Nadir' series (1998) has lost none of its nightmarish and menacing qualities. William Kentridge’s Casspirs Full of Love (1989 - with its decapitated heads ghoulishly crammed into a cupboard - remains a highlight of his oeuvre, even after countless showings. The lithographs by Claudette Schreuders (2003), meanwhile, feature colon-like figures that pulsate with anxiety and are saddled with intense brooding.

Eight selections from Diane Victor’s disquieting 'Disasters of Peace' series (2001-2003), sardonically updating Goya’s renowned nineteenth century indictment of war, sear themselves into the viewer’s consciousness. Contemporary social ills such as street children addicted to sniffing glue lay bare the thwarted hopes of many members of the so-called 'born free' generation. But Victor’s Made to Measure is the most horrific segment: in reference to the hundreds of tiny victims of sexual abuse - the Baby Tshepang case being one of the most publicized - she juxtaposes a flesh-and-blood infant with an X-ray view of the child. An engorged penis can be seen penetrating her vagina through to her chest; a violation that nearly defies comprehension is thus embodied in a graphic and unforgettable visualization.

Not all the art is so heavily imbued with social and political implications.  Joachim Schönfeldt’s fantastical, multi-headed animals are an uncanny delight, even as they allude to contemporary debates about African art and craft. Paul Edmunds dazzles with the virtuosic craftsmanship evident in The Same but Different (2001).  And Vuyile Voyiya’s 'Black and Blue' series (2005) features exquisitely rendered bodies sheathed in a delicate, almost serpent-like skin. Only on reflection is there a hint of violence: the men appear to have been shoved by an unknown force - Rockwell Kent meets Robert Longo’s Men in the Cities. 

'Impressions from South Africa' opens with Kentridge’s jaundiced, officious and repulsive General (1993) and closes with a work by Ernestine White. The five sections of Outlet (2005/2010) are stacked haphazardly in a vertical fashion. The topmost image is of a screaming woman, captured from her lower lip to the crest of her nose. The figure becomes more closely cropped in each of the descending photocopied panels; all that remains at the bottom is the gaping mouth, abstracted from external referents. Outlet recalls Paul Stopforth’s controversial three-panel mixed-media drawing The Interrogators (1979), and provides an unsettling culmination to a provocative presentation of South African printed art.

 
But the democratic impulse that undergirds the public uses of printmaking also exposes it to possible misinterpretations or misuses: stripped of the context within which these images arose, audiences may misconstrue their meaning or reconfigure them as they wish. On the day I viewed the exhibition, two twenty-something women created a souvenir of their visit to the Art Museum: one posed next to Outlet, mimicking the anguished subject’s expression; the other snapped a photo of the scene on her cell phone. These visitors reduced White’s work to a hollow cliché, in much the same thoughtless manner in which Edvard Munch’s The Scream has been caricatured.

This incident does not invalidate or nullify the passion, commitment and creativity that these artists have collectively invested into their work, however. Rather than being a source of despair, it points up the effort that still must be expended on both local and global stages to heighten the general public’s appreciation and understanding of all types of creative expression.

'Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now' features a collection which holds historical importance as well as contemporary relevance. And its accompanying catalogue, containing appendices with artists’ bios, organizations, publishers and printers, and a bibliography is a valuable contribution to that continuing educational mission.

Steven Dubin is Professor of Arts Administration, Teachers College, Columbia University and author of 'Mounting Queen Victoria: Curating Cultural Change' (2009)