Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa.

Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa by Pamela Allara, Marilyn Martin, and Zola Mtshiza

Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Office of Publications, 2003; 92 pp., 32 b/w photos and 32 color plates, map, bibliography, notes, exhibition checklist; $20.00 paper.

Over the past decade or so, the world has watched with intense interest as South Africa rid itself of the apartheid regime; began the process of dealing with the legacy of racism, distrust, inequalities, and violence with which apartheid left the country; and, more recently, has had to come to terms with the realization of the magnitude of the HIV/AIDS crisis facing the nation. Looking to artists as voices of reflection on these events and challenges, South African art has been the focus of much recent attention. The new government of South Africa has tried to build on this interest and declared it a national policy to mobilize art to help meet the tests faced by the new society, including the use of the arts to "provide insights into the aspirations and values of our nation" (p. 7) and in developing jobs linked to local needs and tourist and international markets. Curators and art historians have responded by trying to develop more inclusive, culturally sensitive, and engaging methods of presenting South African art, while artists have been confronting the new social circumstances and involvement in an international marketplace.

The exhibition catalogue Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa explores several of the ways in which these issues are being addressed. The publication, and its accompanying exhibition, was produced through the cooperation of The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University and the South African National Gallery of the Iziko Museums of Cape Town, and features works of more than thirty artists from thirteen different lenders. Designed to showcase the diversity of cultural production in South Africa today, the catalogue includes a wide range of objects, in media as diverse as woodcarving, embroidery, beadwork, photography, painting, printmaking, performance, and wire sculpture; created for markets that range from local to international; and made by artists from a variety of ethnic and educational backgrounds. Each of the works is generously allotted a full page for illustration but, unfortunately, some of the photos appear fuzzy because they were not scanned at a high enough resolution or are too small to be seen clearly. According to the curators, these works were chosen to speak to the different experiences of South African artists and to show the tensions that are still very much part of their lives. Thus the title, Coexistence, insightfully refers to the state of South African society today, where people live together in an uneasy truce yet do not necessarily communicate.

The context for this state of coexistence in the arts is the subject of the nine essays that make up the text of this catalogue. After an introductory essay by Pamela Allara, the instigator and co-curator of the project, the catalogue is divided into three sections.

Under "Institutions and Collecting," Steven Sack, chief director of cultural industries and creative crafts for the Department of Arts and Culture, discusses the national policy on the arts and the gaps that exist between the rhetoric and actual changes. Marilyn Martin, director of the South African National Gallery, and Julia Charlton, curator of the University of Witwatersrand Art Galleries, examine some of the challenges faced in developing collections and exhibitions that engage the public and help break down traditional South African notions about the hierarchy of art practices. Zola Mtshiza, assistant curator of art collections at Iziko Museums of Cape Town, provides a personal account of being trained as one of the first black curators to work in South African museums.

In "The South African Artist Today," Simon Njami looks at the issues facing South African artists from the perspective of an African writer, curator, and publisher who works in Europe and in areas of Africa outside of South Africa. Thembinkosi Goniwe writes about his own experiences as a black South African artist working both in South Africa and internationally.

The third section, "Art and Social Change," offers an essay by Brenda Schmahmann, professor of fine art at Rhodes University, on a variety of needlework workshops designed to provide jobs for rural artists. Artist Kim Berman reflects on her own work setting up a print and papermaking cooperative and how these mediums have been used to create works of art that address a variety of social issues. At the end, short biographies of the writers are provided, but it is lamentable that there are no biographies for the artists. Such information, even if little were known about the artist, would have helped add a layer of understanding to the complex variety of visual works presented.

Although certainly not able to address all of the issues facing South African cultural practices today, Coexistence provides a sensitive and perceptive look at contemporary South African art from a diversity of viewpoints. While the virulence of some of the problems, such as racism and HIV/AIDS, being addressed by these South African arts professionals is certainly unique, the issues discussed are not exclusive to South Africa. Some of the more universally applicable topics discussed in these essays include matters of funding; the unequal distribution of power and capital in the gallery and museum worlds; and the need to design exhibitions that engage broader segments of the population, integrate art into the community in meaningful ways, and make visible a wider range of art-making voices. The works of art, community projects, exhibitions, and insights on these activities presented in this catalogue, therefore, provide intriguing reflections on how cultural production is done and presented not only in South Africa, but throughout the world.