Volume 4 of Visual Century: South African Art in Context 1907-1948 is part of a four-volume publication that reappraises South African visual art of the twentieth century from a postapartheid perspective. The years 1990 to 2007 are covered in Volume 4, edited by Thembinkosi Goniwe, Mario Pissarra and Mandisi Majavu. The end of the Cold War and subsequent emergence of globalisation, along with the advent of democracy in South Africa introduced new social and political orders, with profound implications for South African artists. Concurrently, the persistence of economic inequalities and conflicts within and beyond national borders constantly mitigated against an unbridled celebration of `freedom’. The essays in this volume critically address some of the most notable developments and visible trends in postapartheid South African art. These include South Africa’s entry into the international art community, its struggle to address its past, and artists’ persistent and often provocative preoccupations with individual and collective identity. The widespread and often unsettling representation of human bodies, as well as animal forms, along with the steady increase in use of new technologies and the development of new forms of public art are also discussed. While much of the art of the period is open-ended and non-didactic, the persistence of engagement with socially responsive themes calls into question the reductive binary between `resistance’ and post-apartheid art that has come to dominate accounts of `before’ and `after’.
Format: Paperback / softback
CONTRIBUTORS: Mario Pissarra
EAN: 9781868145270
COUNTRY: South Africa
PAGES: 222
WEIGHT:
HEIGHT: 229 mm
PUBLISHED BY: Wits University Press
DATE PUBLISHED: 2014-06-01
CITY:
GENRE: ART / History / General, ART / African
WIDTH: 152 mm
SPINE:
Book Themes:
Republic of South Africa, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, History of art
Thembinkosi Goniwe is an independent curator and art historian currently lecturing in the Department of Visual Arts and Design at the Vaal University of Technology. He has a BA Fine Arts and MA Fine Arts from the University of Cape Town and is in the process of completing a Phd in Art History through Cornell University. Mandisi Majavu is an independent scholar and the Book Reviews Editor of Interface: A Journal For and About Social Movements. Mario Pissarra is a historian and writer currently based in Cape Town. Pissarra is the founder and Managing Director of ASAI (Africa South Art Initiative) and an Honorary Research Associate of the University of Cape Town.