De ArtePub Date : 2018-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00043389.2017.1372071
Malcolm Corrigall
{"title":"A Spirit of Cosmopolitanism Happily Prevailing in Art: The Chinese Camera Club of South Africa and Transnational Networks of Photography","authors":"Malcolm Corrigall","doi":"10.1080/00043389.2017.1372071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00043389.2017.1372071","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Chinese Camera Club of South Africa was formed in 1952 by members of Johannesburg’s small Chinese community who found themselves excluded from local circuits of photography on the grounds of race. The membership of the Chinese Camera Club sought international recognition as well as local visibility by engaging with transnational networks of photography. In so doing, they became agents in the global dissemination of photographic practices and technologies and asserted a cultural cosmopolitanism that subverted the parochialism of apartheid’s racial hierarchy. Alongside their cosmopolitan patterns of association, they also convened and sustained racially exclusive communities of photographic practice. They staged two international photographic salons in Johannesburg in 1956 and 1964 that were open to photographers from across the worldwide Chinese diaspora and thereby helped forge an imagined community of overseas Chinese photographers. In so doing, the Club and its members established a proprietorial connection with so-called “Chinese” approaches to photography and stressed their enduring connection to idealised and ahistorical notions of Chinese culture and civilisation. This paper explores both of these globally articulated identities—the cosmopolitan and the diasporic—as the result of transnational strategies that fostered autonomy and pride in the face of local racial discrimination.","PeriodicalId":40908,"journal":{"name":"De Arte","volume":"53 1","pages":"26 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00043389.2017.1372071","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41709157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
De ArtePub Date : 2018-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00043389.2017.1402571
Bronwyn Law-Viljoen
{"title":"Albert Adams and the Deposition of Christ","authors":"Bronwyn Law-Viljoen","doi":"10.1080/00043389.2017.1402571","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00043389.2017.1402571","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The large painting, South Africa 1958–1959 (Deposition) (1959) and four small etchings, all 1955, on the Deposition of Christ, form the basis of a discussion of the place of Albert Adams in the canon of South African art and of this artist’s re-interpretation of a key image in Christian iconography and Western painting. In particular, the paper focuses on Adams’s Deposition images as particular instantiations of his concern with the formal and philosophical challenges encountered by the artist in renditions of psychological and physical torment.","PeriodicalId":40908,"journal":{"name":"De Arte","volume":"53 1","pages":"27 - 48"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00043389.2017.1402571","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46483532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
De ArtePub Date : 2018-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00043389.2018.1459107
R. Watt
{"title":"South African Studio Pottery of the Later Twentieth Century and Its Anglo-Oriental Epithet","authors":"R. Watt","doi":"10.1080/00043389.2018.1459107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00043389.2018.1459107","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract South African studio pottery of the later twentieth century has consistently been described as “Anglo-Oriental” because it was perceived to adhere to the standard forms of utilitarian wares as promoted by the Anglo-Oriental tradition of studio pottery. This article investigates the validity of such an epithet, based on evidence that the pioneer South African studio potters and their successors were exposed to broader pottery influences, and that their oeuvres reflected what they borrowed, adapted and re-interpreted from such influences. The careers of South Africa's pioneer studio potters and some of the second generation of studio potters are investigated. The finding is that South African studio pottery of that period was an expression of mostly utilitarian pottery forms reflecting many influences but not dominated by any single pottery tradition. The term “Anglo-Oriental” is useful if used judiciously to describe the aesthetics and ethics of some, but not all, South African studio potters of the later twentieth century. The article further explores whether the era's studio potters contributed towards the creation of a distinctive South African pottery identity and presents the finding that at best, the collective character of the studio pottery can be considered expansive rather than geographic- or culture-specific.","PeriodicalId":40908,"journal":{"name":"De Arte","volume":"53 1","pages":"101 - 75"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00043389.2018.1459107","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42163804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
De ArtePub Date : 2018-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00043389.2018.1466494
L. Kriel
{"title":"Tribing and Untribing the Archive: Identity and the Material Record in Southern KwaZulu-Natal in the Late Independent and Colonial Periods, edited by Carolyn Hamilton and Nessa Leibhammer","authors":"L. Kriel","doi":"10.1080/00043389.2018.1466494","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00043389.2018.1466494","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40908,"journal":{"name":"De Arte","volume":"53 1","pages":"109 - 114"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00043389.2018.1466494","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45899463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
De ArtePub Date : 2018-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00043389.2018.1440708
Khulekani Madlela
{"title":"Visual Representations of Black Hair in Relaxer Advertisements: The Extent to Which It Shapes Black Women’s Hair Preferences and Attitudes towards Hair Alteration","authors":"Khulekani Madlela","doi":"10.1080/00043389.2018.1440708","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00043389.2018.1440708","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article focuses on how the black body, particularly black women’s hair, is represented in advertisements for hair relaxers published in True Love, a South African magazine directed at black women. Using qualitative visual semiotic analysis, this article focuses on the process of dehumanisation through visual representation by paying attention to hair, a highly politicised subject in South Africa. In addition, using pre-group questionnaires and focus-group interviews, the article examines to what extent the images possibly shape hair styling practices of black female readers, aged between 18 and 45, who live in urban areas in South Africa.","PeriodicalId":40908,"journal":{"name":"De Arte","volume":"53 1","pages":"49 - 74"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00043389.2018.1440708","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47591493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
De ArtePub Date : 2018-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00043389.2018.1459095
J. Carman
{"title":"A History of the Iziko South African National Gallery: Reflections on Art and National Identity, by Anna Tietze","authors":"J. Carman","doi":"10.1080/00043389.2018.1459095","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00043389.2018.1459095","url":null,"abstract":"Towards the end of her book, Anna Tietze comments that “a prescriptive stress on nation building” (as required by the 2013 Revised White Paper on Arts, Culture and Heritage) should be balanced by “a concern with what has already been built, in the near or distant past, and especially a concern with those pasts that do not harmonise with current orthodoxy” (p. 202). An accurate, detailed documentation of those pasts is indeed essential for our understanding of the present and future. This is what Tietze sets out to do in her book. Her impeccable archival research, arrangement of the text, and handling of contentious issues make this an important contribution to the history of public institutions in South Africa, and to reflections on art and national identity in general. Tietze constructs the body of her text in accordance with the tenures of different directors (or governance structures) and their impact on the development of the collections and policies. She bookends her five chapters with a lengthy introduction and conclusion in which she discusses issues which are often controversial but need to be voiced. One could quibble with how she discusses classificatory boundaries (fine art versus design, fine art versus craft),1 her overview of western art galleries (or museums),2","PeriodicalId":40908,"journal":{"name":"De Arte","volume":"53 1","pages":"102 - 108"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2018-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00043389.2018.1459095","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41782714","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
De ArtePub Date : 2017-09-02DOI: 10.1080/00043389.2017.1366096
A. Kearney
{"title":"Art History Is Dead; Long Live Art History!","authors":"A. Kearney","doi":"10.1080/00043389.2017.1366096","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00043389.2017.1366096","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The # RhodesMustFall campaign that began at the University of Cape Town in early 2015, called for the decolonisation of South African university curricula, among other transformations. As a result, many South African academics are questioning the epistemologies that underpin their disciplines. What does the decolonisation of university curricula imply for disciplines in the humanities, art history among them, which were born at the time of colonial expansion and the categorising of knowledge that came with the enlightenment? In this paper I explore some implications of the decolonisation of art history for the ways in which we practise and write art history today. I begin by briefly exploring the origins of the discipline, in order to create a platform from which to consider contemporary art history writing. I then consider the ways in which the decolonisation of the discipline could be understood as the end of art history. A reflection of some of the affordances and limitations of the postcolonial rhetoric in which calls for decolonisation are framed, leads me to consider methods of writing art history that could be construed as acts of decolonisation. I conclude by suggesting that one way to decolonise the discipline is to foreground the author’s subjective voice when writing arts histories.","PeriodicalId":40908,"journal":{"name":"De Arte","volume":"52 1","pages":"102 - 121"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2017-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00043389.2017.1366096","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"58735750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
De ArtePub Date : 2017-09-02DOI: 10.1080/00043389.2017.1332503
Anne Scheffer, I. Stevens, Amanda Du Preez
{"title":"Hysterical Representation in the Art of Mary Sibande","authors":"Anne Scheffer, I. Stevens, Amanda Du Preez","doi":"10.1080/00043389.2017.1332503","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00043389.2017.1332503","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The character, Sophie, a domestic worker who is invariably deeply immersed in fantasy, appears throughout Mary Sibande’s oeuvre (ranging from Long Live the Dead Queen (2009), to the series, The Purple Shall Govern (2013, 2014)). Sophie is employed by the artist in order to engage with patriarchal and apartheid representations of black femininity, where it is particularly Sophie’s body which registers the traumatic impact of these systems. We contend that Sibande’s portrayal of Sophie, where she is continually engaged in fantasy and articulates trauma at the site of the body, is consistent with hysterical representation. Our interpretation of hysteria is derived from the feminist understanding thereof, where it is not understood as a form of pathology, but rather as a mode of representation which allows the subject to articulate repressed traumatic knowledge and repressed desire in a negotiated manner, from within the confines of an oppressive system. Hysteria is understood as involving the representation of repressed traumatic knowledge and repressed desire through fantasy and the body.","PeriodicalId":40908,"journal":{"name":"De Arte","volume":"52 1","pages":"28 - 4"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2017-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/00043389.2017.1332503","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44721774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}