Reimagining South African national heritage: two ten-years-of-democracy exhibitions.

Two exhibitions organized to celebrate South Africa's ten years of democracy raise crucial questions about national heritage, archives, and the role of visual culture in the construction of a new South African cultural identity. The "Democracy X" exhibition at the Castle (Fig. 2) and the "Decade of Democracy" exhibition at the South African National Gallery, both of which form part of the Iziko museums complex in Cape Town, are concerned with the active renegotiation of heritage, memory, and identity in the rapidly transforming socioeconomic milieu of contemporary South Africa--albeit in very distinct ways.

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The "Democracy X" exhibition, largely funded by the government's Department of Arts and Culture, is an educational project that aims to renarrate South African history through the showcasing of a remarkable panoply of more than 300 objects accessed from a wide array of sources. A team of academics and curators provided a veritable feast for the archaeologist of the visual. (1) The media that are incorporated include video, film, soundtracks, photography, painting, and sculpture. A polyglot and democratic array of objects--from extremely valuable art objects to military insignia, newspapers, furniture, and ordinary household possessions--all form part of a rich interweaving of narratives. In keeping with the educational aims of the exhibition, artworks were selected largely for their political and/or historical resonance. (2)

The collected objects on display may be read as a national archive. Accessed from natural history museums, social history museums, national art collections, and private collections, the heterogeneity of this archive promiscuously traverses the boundaries and hierarchies of Western collecting practices. This is a highly creolized archive--a patrimony that resists any simple fixing of national identity. The subtitle of the exhibition, "Marking the Present, Representing the Past," indicates the organizers' postcolonial de/reconstructive intent. Although the exhibition abjures the teleology and progressive thrust of Western history, there is an underlying telos provided by the present moment: the celebration of South Africa's resoundingly successful independence from white domination. Therefore, it is symbolically significant that the Castle--the oldest permanent colonial structure in South Africa--should have been selected as its venue. It is an evocative gesture that this seventeenth century colonial structure, which served as fortress, administrative center, and prison in colonial times (and as military headquarters during the apartheid years), should be reappropriated to showcase both the triumph of African self-determination and the creolized richness wrought by centuries of cross-cultural contact.

Although historical background information is selectively provided in the form of text boards, this postcolonial history is mainly narrated by means of the objects and cultural artifacts on display. In their materiality and physical presence, they articulate South Africa's complex history more eloquently than any written text could hope to. In particular, objects bear persuasive witness to the nature of cross-cultural encounters. In this regard, the evidence of objects is incontrovertible and often fundamentally subversive. A china vase and Batavian chest on display in the colonial room belie the rationalization of the colonial enterprise as a selfless mission of civilization and Christian salvation. Instead, they remind us that the European presence in the Cape was nothing more than the accidental by-product of the Cape's strategic position on the profitable trade route between East and West. The babel of cultural tongues that are on display here--Portuguese, Xhosa, Khoi, English, Arabic, Zulu, Dutch, Afrikaans-preclude any conventional reading of history as the story of the grand and heroic exploits of Important White Men. The arrogant and arrogating history of the West, with its appropriative claim to one universal human narrative, makes way for many postcolonial micronarratives.

If it is accepted that national heritage is a discursive and highly selective practice that exists primarily to give substance to the abstract imaginary of the nation, this archive holds up an interesting mirror of a new South African social and cultural identity. Most fascinating is the way in which this particular selected heritage of the moment engages in dialogue with previous national constructions of heritage. An excellent example is the display of the first text written in Afrikaans: a version of the Qu'ran in Arabic script for the use of the Cape Colony's imported, largely Muslim slave population. The Afrikaner Nationalist's obsession with the "purity" of the Afrikaans language (as signifier of an exclusively white cultural identity), is radically subverted by this reminder of its multicultural and interracial origins. Likewise, in a deliberate reversal of the Afrikaner Nationalist version of history and national heritage, the Great Trek (the pioneer journey into the interior in 1838 which heralded the founding of the independent Boer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State), is omitted from the exhibition as actual historical event. Whereas this historic journey formed the fetishistic and obsessive focus of school history books during the apartheid era, it features in this exhibition solely as example of Afrikaner Nationalist propaganda in a film of the 1938 centenary reenactment of the event. (3) Likewise, the only reference to Jan van Riebeeck, the founder of the colony, is a film clip of an early twentieth century "van Riebeeck's Day Celebration'--an all-white festival commemorating his arrival in the Cape.

The reinscription or partial erasure of past historical accounts will no doubt be read by many white South Africans as a deliberate exercise of power or as an act of revenge. More fruitfully, however, this treatment of previous historical narratives as "White Mythology" (to appropriate Jacques Derrida's term) may be read as a deliberate reminder that history is discourse and that successive accounts of history differ radically in form and focus. The deliberate consciousness of (and postmodern play with) history as a clash of heterogeneous discourses appears even in the use of certain conventions of display: One wall-mounted case displays a variety of weapons (colonial and indigenous) in the fan formation so typical of ethnographic museums of the colonial era. Visual quotations such as these reveal an intelligent historical self-consciousness that parodies and undermines the usual Western display of material culture as either ethnographic sign or aesthetic object.

But if this exhibition accepts--indeed emphasizes--that both history and nation are narration, it is made clear that narration is not the sole privilege of the powerful. To the contrary, this exhibition deliberately airs marginal perspectives. The South African War (more commonly known as the Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902) is not depicted as an epic battle between opposing armies but is recounted by means of a patiently and lovingly decoupaged plate by an Afrikaner woman in a British concentration camp. Throughout the exhibition, major political events are voiced from unconventional or marginal viewpoints. South African Communist Party posters tell us about World War II (Fig. 3). The story of Nongqawuse's fateful vision which presaged the ruin of the Xhosa nation comes alive in a recording of contemporary Xhosa children singing a folk song about it. A tapestry borrowed from the Voortrekker monument provides a woman's perspective of the daily deprivations and sufferings of the pioneer journey to the north. Thus the iconic events of history are elided in favor of the everyday contingencies and experiences which gave shape to South Africa's collective memory.

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Although it goes out of its way to air marginal perspectives, the exhibition does not stand neutral toward the voices it airs, nor does it attempt objectivity by granting all voices equal prominence. It is abundantly clear that the organizers set out to redress past neglects and to foreground the long-censored history of grassroots resistance to colonial and apartheid domination. Thus the heroes of early African nationalism are given exposure in a photographic portrait gallery (Fig. 4), while the major white protagonists of colonial and apartheid history are conspicuous in their absence. But it would be inappropriate to accuse this exhibition of crude party-political propaganda or of promoting the euphoric "rainbowism" that is the stock fare of television commercials and media coverage of South Africa's ten years of democracy. By and large, individual figures are given only limited exposure, since the emphasis throughout is on objects and their remarkable cultural and historical eloquence (Fig. 5). The only contemporary political figure to be prominently featured is national icon Nelson Mandela, who is nonetheless depicted, not in a heroic moment of political epiphany, but conversing with a group of schoolchildren. The organizers have also resisted the oversimplified dyadic "struggle model" of the 1980s, which depicted South African history as a metaphoric fight to the death between two opposing forces. Likewise, it avoids an earlier apartheid modality in which ethnicity is promoted as the main determining force of African politics and history. The standard museum practice of labeling African objects as ethnic-specific, with the attendant implication that the cultural isolate of the "tribe" determines artistic production, is replaced by a strategic emphasis on cultural affinities and hybridities (Fig. 6). In this way, the numerous cultural identities showcased here become part of one national heritage.

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Through the emphasis on visual images and objects, the conventional representation of history as the accumulated deeds of powerful men gives way to history as the lived experience of ordinary individuals. Thus the insidious control exercised by the apartheid state over every movement of every black subject is given poignant testimony by an array of frayed and much-stamped passbooks. A photograph of sleeping migrant workers recounts the devastating effects of capitalist and industrial expansion. Conversely, major historical figures are exposed as ordinary mortals by the display of their personal items: Mandela's boxing glove; Bram Fischer's rugby shorts. (4) The black comedy of apartheid-era censorship is exposed by a stack of music LPs from the 1980s, with transgressive tracks meticulously scratched and painted over. The engraved postal stones of the early explorers testify to an isolation and loneliness so vast that they reverberate across enormous distance and time. Two pairs of bulls' horns, densely engraved with platoons of British soldiers, articulate the presence of the colonist as menacing invasion.

As a counter to the Eurocentric proposal that South African history began in 1652 with Jan van Riebeeck's arrival in the Cape, a significant portion of this exhibition--three of the seven rooms--is devoted to precolonial history. The myth of precolonial Africa as a static, isolated, and tradition-bound entity isolated from world history is imploded by the stubborn evidence of its surviving objects. A replica of Mapungubwe's golden rhinoceros (Fig. 7) articulates not only the complex hierarchies and wealth of once-powerful African states, but also Africa's participation, long before European colonization, in a network of global economic trade. This part of the exhibition is of particular interest to the student of African art, since it includes remarkably rare and precious objects, including the enigmatic Lydenburg heads (Fig. 1).

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Although the exhibition follows a basic chronological trajectory, the linear flow of history is frequently interrupted by reverse flows and eddies. One such interruption is a room where a documentary about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission can be viewed, as well as photographer Gideon Mendel's stark but disturbingly beautiful documentation of the impact of AIDS on a variety of South African families.

The exhibition concludes with a room that, in the logic of its unfolding trajectory, constitutes the present. Whereas the other rooms relied on objects to recount South African history, the present moment is articulated by ten young South Africans who have been asked to express what democracy means to them. Their responses are accompanied by self-portraits taken with disposable cameras. Before leaving the exhibition, visitors are invited to complete an electronic multiple-choice questionnaire about issues such as education, crime, and AIDS. The sum total of responses received is projected on the screen, giving respondents the opportunity to measure their own opinions against the mass of opinions received. This interactive component puts the mechanisms of participatory democracy into action, and constitutes an appropriate conclusion to the exhibition as a whole.

As any reasonably critical South African will verify, celebrations of the national body as one big, happy family can easily collapse into unconvincing kitsch and obscene sentiment. In this exhibition, however, visual culture is not reductively promoted as a reassuring link between peoples or as a mindless celebration of plurality and multiculturalism.

The South African family that is here on view is a fraught one--traumatized by incest, sibling rivalry, divorce, betrayal, and domestic violence--but also enriched by an intricate interweaving of languages, values, and interests. The emphasis on connectivity and intimacy speaks of a common reciprocal legacy that always succeeded, even in the darkest years of apartheid and colonial history, in bleeding beyond the confines of enforced segregation and a pervasive culturalism that promoted cultures as irreconcilable isolates.

The exhibition at Iziko: South African National Gallery (SANG), "Decade of Democracy," comprises a selection of art acquired during the last ten years for their permanent collection. (5) It is accompanied by a thick and authoritative publication of the same title, which consists of an anthology of very competent essays by a variety of art critics on major themes weaving through the exhibition. One may assume that while curator Emma Bedford, in her selection from the SANG's last ten year's additions to the permanent collection, intended to provide an overview of current trends and issues in South African art production, she also wished to publicize the redoubtable achievements of the SANG in the face of considerable financial adversity. The display serves as a credible index of quality work produced by South Africa's most prominent and promising contemporary artists and is put together with an experienced eye that is bifocally fixed on both the international competitive art world and the local cultural arena. This is a young and forward-looking collection--one that does not rely too much on the solid reputations of established older icons of the South African art world, but gives considerable prominence to younger experimental artists. Particular exposure is given to multimedia and new media works in a neoconceptual mode. Although this exhibition provides a scopic overview of the diversity of South African art praxis, it is also unapologetic about its promotion of an internationally competitive, young and vital, cutting-edge avant-garde.

The extent to which South African artists still engage with issues of identity is notable, but it is refreshing that current conceptions of identity add nuance and complexity to the obsession with racial politics that characterized previous identity debates. Liese van der Watt's essay in the Decade of Democracy catalogue provides an intelligent reading of identity as both lack and excess in Berni Searle and Minnette Vari's work, while Zayd Minty tries to pin down a "post-black" position in the art of a younger generation of black artists. Although the concern with identity has shifted from a purely political circumscription to a more subtle engagement with the modalities of language and psychology, it is clear that South Africa's political transition heralded a seismic disruption and consequent fragmentation of individual and collective subjectivities. This upheaval entails a radical reconception not only of identity, but also of tradition. A significant number of young male artists choose to confront tradition in their work, notably the traditions of initiation and the practice of circumcision, which, as Moleleki Ledimo points out in his essay, traverse ethnic and racial boundaries. Young black artists of the avant-garde offer lived, critical, insider perspectives that radically transpose the somewhat propagandistic nationalist conception of tradition offered by the African Renaissance.

Also fascinating are the works that engage South Africa's past. Johannes Phokela's allegorical reading of Dutch Baroque paintings parodies colonial excess and greed with intelligence and trenchant wit, while Johannes Segogela's History Press constitutes a postcolonial response to the role of the printing press in "official" versions of history (Fig. 8). Sue Williamson's interactive Can't Forget, Can't Remember recasts the Truth and Reconciliation hearings as a testimony to the vain deceptions, dark denials, and irreconcilable contradictions of national memory (Fig. 9). Despite this continued concern with politics and our colonial and apartheid past, the high seriousness of South African art of the 1980s and 1990s is beginning to yield to a more playful, humorous deconstruction of South Africa's collective and pathological obsession with race. This can be seen particularly in the work of younger artists such as Tracey Rose, and in the more popular media of comix.

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It can be argued that it is precisely because it offers complex, subversively playful, and highly critical perspectives on South African issues that high art plays an indispensable role in the postcolonial state. The avant-garde tradition of self-reflexivity and critical engagement with the present is invaluable to the development of a multidimensional national culture in South Africa. Equally essential, Ashraf Jamal points out in his essay on Tracey Rose, is the avant-garde tradition of play, mockery, and anarchic carnage for a candid confrontation of our national pathologies. It is precisely the irrelevance and irreverence of avant-garde art that allows the fine artist a free space from which to comment.

Although the SANG has undergone an arduous process of transformation this past decade, which entailed, inter alia, its incorporation into Iziko Museums (6) and a drastic reduction of its budget, (7) this exhibition confirms that it remains dedicated to the promotion of fine art. No one will contest that this particular field is an exclusive one. In the context of a newly democratic South Africa that is intent on redressing the inequities of the past and battling a legacy of enormous socioeconomic problems, it may seem an untenable indulgence to fund something that apparently has no value to the overwhelming majority of the country's population. Add to this the indisputable Western origins and legacy of high art and the continuing domination of Europe and America as center of the "international" high art arena, and the difficulties of substantive transformation could seem almost insurmountable.

The question is not, however, whether the SANG can overcome its colonial and apartheid legacy, or whether it can carve a particular African niche for itself free of the neocolonial influence of the center. Clearly that would be unattainable and would moreover necessitate the wilful erasure of its past. Rather, the question should be whether the institution, notwithstanding its Eurocentric legacy, contributes something of value to the new nation, and if so, whether it deserves greater state support. To my mind, there can be no question of the SANG's continued cultural relevance in contemporary South Africa. The "Decade of Democracy" exhibition demonstrates this relevance both in the dynamic diversity of the art it represents and in the polemical thematics it addresses. Above all, it confirms that South Africa produces artists of high caliber capable of competing with the world's best. These artists need a national institution to support and validate them and to facilitate contact with the global arena. By means of the persuasive mediation of extremely competent and articulate African art historians such as Olu Oguibe, Okwui Enwezor, and Salah Hassan, Africa is gradually carving out a unique space for itself in the vastly arrogant and Eurocentric "international" high art arena. This is no mean feat considering that the art world seems intent on keeping African culture in a precolonial time warp or, alternatively, is only prepared to embrace an untutored contemporary African production that is seen to underwrite European superiority by its "quaint" attempts to engage a fundamentally "alien" modernity. The ground won by these critics has to be jealously defended and systematically expanded. This can only happen if South Africa's growing corpus of competent young artists is given the support they deserve--the alternative is that they are subsumed into the ever-expanding diaspora.

The SANG's indomitable commitment to the promotion of quality art, despite severe budgetary constraints, is remarkable. The "Decade of Democracy" exhibition can not be evaluated without acknowledgement of the fact that this collection had to be acquired by means of assiduous fund-raising, through bequests and donations, and with a measure of corporative support. Currently the gallery is relying on random pay-outs from the National Lotto and on qualified donations from the Department of Arts and Culture. As Marilyn Martin points out, this means that the SANG has not been able to add to its collection in any strategic manner, nor has it been able to seriously redress past omissions or fill glaring gaps in its historical collection. Yet, despite these constraints, groundbreaking programs such as Emma Bedford's series of artist's residencies (funded by Marlene Dumas) profile mainly young black artists and challenge the gallery's reputation for racial exclusivity. And as any South African art teacher will verify, the teaching and study of contemporary South African art would also be unthinkable without the numerous quality publications produced by the SANG in the last ten years.

It is essential that the national heritage that is now in the process of construction must promote a nuanced conception of the cultural field as a many-faceted domain that can/should also accommodate avant-garde art. In Pierre Bourdieu's terms, the SANG's prestigious contemporary collection, as showcased in "Decade of Democracy," constitutes valuable cultural capital for South Africa.

[This article was accepted for publication in June 2004.]

(1.) The team was led by key organizers Rayda Becker, Sandra Klopper, and Lalou Meltzen

(2.) Dumile Feni's African Guernica, for instance, serves as icon of the anger and despair that triggered the watershed 1976 revolution, while Jane Alexander's life-size sculpture of an inverted figure with bound feet shockingly confronts the viewer with the corporeality of torture.

(3.) The centenary celebrations of the Great Trek, which converted the historical event of the pioneer's quest for independence into the central Grand Narrative of the apartheid era, were used to mobilize Afrikaner sentiment in the build-up to the landmark 1948 election victory of the National Party.

(4.) Brain Fischer was Nelson Mandela's defense lawyer at the Rivonia trial. Born of a powerful Afrikaner family, Fischer was branded as a traitor to the Afrikaner Nationalist cause after joining the SA Communist Party and participating in anti-apartheid political activities.

(5.) The catalogue of the exhibit is A Decade of Democracy: South African Art 1994-2004 from the Permanent Collection of Iziko: South African National Gallery, edited by E. Bedford (Cape Town: Double Storey Books, 2004).

(6.) The SANG was amalgamated into a flagship institution (subsequently named Iziko Museums) which comprises fifteen museums and sites and three major disciplines: art history, natural history, and social history.

(7.) In an article on the gallery's transformation process in the Decade of Democracy catalogue, director of collections Marilyn Martin mentions, inter alia, that since the museums merged into one national body, Iziko staff has been reduced from 228 at the time of amalgamation to 187 at present. From 1984 to 1997, the acquisition budget remained at R200,000 per annum; and between 1997 and 2003 the SANG received no budget at all.