Learning through art: The Museum as classroom aims to serve as a platform for school learners, educators and art enthusiasts to appreciate and absorb artworks and important genres discussed in the Visual Arts Curriculum. Artworks were sourced from William Humphreys Art Gallery, ArtbankSA Contemporary Collection and Oliewenhuis Art Museum’s Permanent Collection, and artworks that are discussed in the textbooks. The objective of this exhibition was to curate it with as much visual accuracy as possible, so that the museum indeed becomes a classroom.
Curating an exhibition while attempting to showcase a historical timeline in South African history of art, one becomes aware of how art and artists have mirrored their surroundings and societies throughout the ages. It is noticeable that from the earliest art-making in South Africa (as early as the 1900s), art has been influenced by political undertones, whether tumultuous political events or even as simple as trying to exhibit their work in art galleries. Preference was given to the white 20th century masters in museum collections that thrived on colonialist influences in these museums’ founding collections. The absence of the work of black artists, or the art of any other race, is evident in museum collections today. Unfortunately this is the aftermath of colonialism, apartheid and white supremacy.
In the Visual Culture textbook these historical complicities are underscored and discussed. It is imperative that a focus and understanding of South Africa’s complicated history should be recognised and acknowledged, in exchange for understanding the present and our future. Museums are tasked to fill the ‘gaps’ in their collections to convey an accurate art historical narrative with its collections.
Throughout the ages, artists visually voiced frustrations, inequalities and hardship with their paintings, sculpture and drawings. It was striking that once the curation of Learning through art: The Museum as classroom was finalised and artworks were installed, overlapping themes could be detected. Artists used similar and dissimilar methods to raise their voices and simultaneously address alike subject matters. A coherent theme is visible: from as early as the 1960 and ’70 resistance artists to contemporary artists, artists continue to brush the grain of history. Their artworks echo subjects surrounding identity and gender politics, commenting on the harsh reality of gender-based violence, a collapsed value system and responding to post- 1994 democratic identity issues.
Art and politics will always have a strong relationship. Artists mirrored their societies until today by divulging important historical moments within the different oeuvres in which they worked. Unfortunately, our earlier resistance artists did not have the luxury of voicing themselves entirely without disruption due to apartheid restrictions. For that reason the following artists are of utmost importance: Julian Motau, Dumile Feni and Ezrom Legae- to name a few. These artists recorded their surroundings with very little in the way of resources and training. They were the leading resistance artists from as early as the 1960s. The work of these artists reflects their daily struggles; poverty, malnutrition, displacement, and, ultimately, that they lived under brutal, dangerous and inhumane circumstances.
These artists were infuriated by their inescapable plight. Their work resembles a unique African modernism and today is immensely sought after in public and private collections. Dumile Feni also referred to as the ‘Goya of the township’ is a pioneer example of this timeframe. Feni did not shy away from showcasing the crude environment in which he lived. His artworks and chosen subject matter clearly show his frustrations by merging people and humans in his drawings, gruesome depictions of death and poverty. As Anitra Nettleton noted that “most of Dumile’s pre-exile works transcend narrow racial and class-bound interpretations. In South Africa Dumile worked with a set of formal devices very reminiscent of early twentieth century European Expressionists reinterpretations of ‘primitive’ art… In these drawings he developed a vocabulary of distortions of the human anatomy, working within a framework that exploits visual deviations from the ‘norm’ of human anatomy and spatial organisation as psychologically and somatically disturbing phenomena” (2011: 15-17).
As noted, Feni was referred to as ‘The Goya of the Township’. This is interesting as it is unknown whether he ever referred to the expressionist drawings or etchings of Francisco Goya (1746-1828), who was a master Spanish painter and printmaker in the 18th and 19th centuries. There are stark resemblances between Goya’s drawings and etchings and the works of Feni. Goya’s work provided a critical eye on contemporary Spanish society, his views on war, poverty, corruption, violence and the mortality (www.Francisco-de-Goya.com). Goya’s figurative drawing style resembles exaggerated realism and caricature. In 1799 he published a suite of eighty allegorical etchings. With his series The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, Goya introduces a world of witches, ghosts, and fantastic creatures that invade the mind, nightmarish visions symbolising a world against reason (Voorhies, J. 2003). The fact that Feni unknowingly worked in a similar style as a European artist working in the 18th century is a clear indication of his intuitive artistic integrity and potential.
Resistance Art as a theme is underlined and emphasised within the Visual Arts Curriculum. Our leading artists, such as Dumile Feni and Julian Motau, set a sturdy foundation for the contemporary artists who delve into the same genre of Resistance Art today. Manfred Zylla, Willie Bester, Norman Catherine, Penny Siopis and Pat Maoutla work within this genre. These artists took the theme further and kept on pointing out the inequalities of the world, its socio-political matters, and continue creating art that is candid about society. In their overview of Resistance Art in South Africa, (Louw, E. & Beukes, M. and Van Wyk, L, 2013) note that “The Soweto uprising of 1976 sparked a new commitment by many artists to moral and political responsibility with the belief that art had a conscious role to play under conditions of oppression in South Africa. An increasing number of artists, both black and white, began to see art as a means of portraying their view of political and social issues in South Africa and art became a way to voice the injustices in South African society” (2013: 113).
The 1980s was a particularly turbulent political time in South Africa. In this era Manfred Zylla became a prominent artist. He was highly critical of apartheid. The era of Resistance Art drew closer to 1994, but Zylla continued to work within this paradigm of social change. In his book, Manfred Zylla: Art and Resistance (2012) he explains that he grew up in Germany, living through the ravages of World War II and its aftermath. Zylla has created works concerned with globalisation, pollution, global warming and natural resources, capitalism, crime, drugs, refugees, alternative energy and transport and attitudes towards disability. His works deal with issues which affect us all, they tell of the plight of the world and point to Zylla’s concern with the destiny of humanity, the future of the planet and, importantly, art as a tool for change.
The prominent work of Zylla, Games (1984-1985), seen in this exhibition, is based on a real horrific incident that took place in 1985 in South Africa. Zylla says “I started painting this work but it took about a year when I titled the painting Games. Games is based on the event that was organised and hosted by the End Conscription Campaign. Later that year I was deeply moved by the death of Michael Miranda, an eleven- year- old boy who was killed by the railway police on 15 October 1985. Miranda’s family were relatives of Aziza’s [Zylla’s wife]. We visited their house and I saw his blood- soaked clothing. The police had delivered it to the house wrapped around the stones that they claimed he had thrown” (Erdmann 2012: 56).
As stated, Games records the horrible plight of an innocent eleven- year- old boy that was killed by the police in 1985. This work further encompasses a series of symbolisms based on human rights, capitalism, spectators blinded by money, reference to the Reserve Bank – all painted around a dart board game with the young men in the centre of the composition. The name of the game, ‘Killer’, is perhaps based on the murder of the young Michael Miranda, and how people witness his killing as if watching a game.
A game can be seen as a ritual or a performance. As stated in the textbook, “there is an ominous cast of military figures circling around the young men, aiming at them with different firearms. On the left-hand side there are parliamentarians watching this game. The top of the spectator’s desks are made of huge bank notes; the two larger smiling figures are previous ministers of finance with their eyes blinkered by banknotes. On the right-hand side there are even people in cars watching this game. In the background one is aware of the matchbox houses of the Khayelitsha Township, 30 km from the city. Zylla emphasises how capitalism played a huge role in apartheid. Those who want to retain their power and need to exploit the huge pool of cheap black labour. To retain their power those of privileges would do anything to maintain their political and economically power. This all is a game when people’s basic rights and lives are at stake” (Louw, E. & Beukes, M. and Van Wyk 2013: 141).
With Patience on a monument: a History Painting (1988), Penny Siopis showcases a different ritual that is performed by Patience: a powerful black female, peeling a lemon whilst sitting on what seems like a heap of trash or disregarded objects. It appears that Patience is playing the role of the Mother of the Nation. With this monumental painting, Siopis questions and probes into historical patriarchal power control insinuated by different wars, colonialism and inequalities towards women.
Colonialism and the South African war, white Nationalism and othering, are emphasised in the background of Patience on a monument: a History Painting. One senses the feeling that by the repetitive imagery – cut-outs and photocopies of old history textbooks for school learners – Siopis are emphasising horrible historical moments embedded in South African history. Patience sits prominent on this chaotic background, disrupting history.
Marilyn Martin casts light on our complicated history and the influences on South African art, befitting to what Siopis is referring to with her collaged background. “South African society is the product of both imperialism and colonialism, as well as the opposition to such ambitions: the resistance of the Khoi San to the Dutch arrival in 1652 and the genocide which ensued; the Great Trek of Afrikaners away from British domination (1834-1854) and the Frontier Wars fought in the Eastern Cape; the opposition of Africans to the British colonial forces which resulted in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) in which the independent Boer Republics were crushed by British Imperialism; the process of reconstruction and unification which culminated in Union in 1910, the founding of the South African Native National Congress (later the African National Congress) to fight for land and political rights for all races.” (1996: 4).
Each of these historical moments had an immense impact on the history of South Africa. Siopis repetitively emphasises the unfair and immoral moments of our past with the obsessive cutting and pasting of the pictures found in the text books. Layers upon layers of images are pasted and painted, building an impasto of colours creating depth and focal points in the background.
Siopis further questions patriarchy, as history was mostly written from a white male perspective. Patience is the key figure in this painting. She disrupts the history by sitting comfortably, as explained in the Visual Arts text book, “classically draped with one breast revealed. Peeling a lemon which is a bitter fruit hinting at the true position of the black woman historically. The pile of waste debris some of the Western civilisation that was brought to South Africa by all these historical moments such as British Imperialism and colonialism” (Louw, E. & Beukes, M. and Van Wyk, L, 2013)
Disrupting the colonial past has become a dominant theme in the exhibition. The artworks of Johannes Phokela and Nomusa Makhubu unravel this theme further.
In The Self Portrait Project (2007) Makhubu challenges the viewer with the relationship between past and present. Unsettling historical photographs of black women were drawn from archival images. These photographs are evidence of typical and stereotypical artefacts of colonial anthropology to portray Africans – men and women – as mere ‘subjects’. The photographs were enlarged with a projector and the artist deliberately inserted her own image on these photographs by placing herself between the projector and the screen. She imprints herself as a ghost image disappearing into and erupting out of the resulting image. As Makhubu says: “The patronizing visual language in colonial photography had to be rudely interrupted” (Makhubu 2017: 30).
The photographs resurrected from colonial scrapbooks seem more real than the flesh and blood of the artist who attempts to disrupt their space. The present is, therefore, overwritten by past representations. Makhubu further claims that “The Self Portrait Project is an unfortunate title for the work. Rather than being explorations of the self, the project explores representation of African women. Colonial photography is the documentation of violation and the terror of dispossession. Re-enacting colonial photography is to come close to this terror and to realize its present manifestations. For me, post-memory is lived memory – it is a way of coming to terms with the persistence of the same repressive structures” (Makhubu 2017: 30).
Gender, gender stereotypes and gender politics are an important part of the Visual Art Curriculum. Gender inequality and gender-based violence are unfortunately still a severe reality in South Africa and globally. Incidents in news reports make it impossible to be unaware of this genocide against women. The works of female artists that are shown in the Learning through art: The Museum as classroom exhibition are fighting for female rights, pointing out gender inequality and racial divide. These themes are evident with the art of Penny Siopis, Diane Victor and Nadipha Mntambo, who focus on the stereotyping of the female body.
Chimera (2012) formed part of Mntambo’s solo exhibition, The Unspoken, at Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town during 2012. Choosing cowhide as preferred medium (her technique involves a series of chemical processes to manipulate the raw cow hide and stretch it onto plaster casts of her own body), makes these art works both fascinating and repellent. The cowhide sculpture replaces human skin; the textures capture the female form both in a kneeling position and in the resemblance of a dress. The kneeling position of the figure leads to notions about the female body, perhaps in a submissive or in a praying pose. Artist and curator, Gabi Ngcobo explains that “Mntambo’s work encourages us to critique the politics and aesthetics of femininity and beauty and is suggestive of the ways in which (black) women are re-interpreting their bodies and claiming visibility” (Louw, E, Beukes, M & Van Wyk, L 2013: 299).
The hairy skin in female form is used, Mntambo says, to ‘challenge and subvert preconceptions regarding representation of the female body’ and to ‘disrupt perceptions of attraction and repulsion’. The artist is also interested in how the human figure merges into animal, and that we tend to forget that “we are all animals as well”. Choosing to work with cowhide, her work is automatically linked with African rituals and traditions. However, Mntambo states that “Cowhide is the material I have chosen as a means of expression. It is a product of my artistic thinking. I wanted to be a forensic pathologist and I really love chemicals and understanding the chemical process… I don’t know if that is the only reason, but my beginning of using cowhide was a very private, strangely spiritual experience of having a dream I cannot really remember. But I do remember there were cows in the dream. This is why I chose the material. I enjoy exploring how a chemical process can give me a certain amount of control over this organic material” (Simbao 2011: 15).
As indicated in the introduction of this article, Learning through art: The Museum as classroom aims to serve as a platform for school learners, educators and art enthusiasts to appreciate and absorb artworks and important genres discussed in the Visual Arts Curriculum. The Curriculum exhibition is an annual highlight at Oliewenhuis Art Museum. Our mission is to collect safe keep and educate with our collections. Learning through art: The Museum as classroom provides a historical and contemporary timeline of South African History of Art. It is interesting that themes from the past are ever present, even with our contemporary leading artists. Artists dabble with current issues, such as gender-based violence and a post-1994 identity. Artists are debating, dialoguing and resisting. Marilyn Martin said that “it is our own task to rewrite our own history and to develop a hybridized canon on our own terms” (1996: 15). With this in mind I want to underscore the importance of educating through art: educating also seeks to foster a culture by the youth, art enthusiasts and art appreciators to voice the importance of art for generations to come, its role in society and how art can be a powerful tool to change and highlight the societal wrongs in our world.
Reference list:
Erdmann, H. 2012. Manfred Zylla: Art and Resistance. Cape Town: Erdmann Contemporary.
Francisco de Goya – Artist Biography with Portfolio of Paintings, Prints and Artwork: www.Francisco-de-Goya.com
Louw, E. & Beukes, M. and Van Wyk, L. 2013.Visual Arts Grade 12: Learners Guide. Cape Town: Future Managers.
Makhubu, N. Intertwined: A selection of photographs by Nomusa Makhubu 20015-2017. Cape Town: Erdmann Contemporary.
Martin, M. 1996. The Rainbow Nation: Identity and Transformation. Oxford Art Journal. Vol. 19, No 1. (1996), pp 3- 15.
Nettleton, A. 2011. Writing Artists into History: Dumile Feni and the South African Canon. African Arts. Spring 2011, Vol. 44, pp. 8-25.
Simbao, R & Elliott, D. 2011. Nandipha Mntambo. Johannesburg: Stevenson
Voorhies, James. “Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) and the Spanish Enlightenment.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/goya/hd_goya.htm (October 2003)
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