Arh2602 Essay

1089 Words5 Pages
ArtThrob Page6oflO The cover of Grey Areas Grey Areas reviewed By Paul Godfrey MinneRe Van Self Portrait 1 1995 Digital print on vinyl, steel 1200 x 600 x 35cm The publication of Grey Areas: Representation, Identity and Politics in Contemporary South African Art marks a welcome intervention into the discourse-starved arena of South African contemporary art. The majority of the 33 texts centre on an article written by the artistic director of the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Okwui Enwezor, entitled Reframing the Black Subject: Ideology and fantasy in contemporary South African Art which was originally published in the catalogue of a Norwegian exhibition, 'Contemporary Art from South Africa1. This polemic was supplemented by a review of the exhibition/catalogue by Kendell Geers in The Star and an essay by Olu Oguibe, Beyond Visual Pleasures: A Brief Reflection on the Workof Contemporary African Women Artists. It may be informative that all three refused permission for their texts to be included or to write a new piece concerning the issues raised. Enwezor's text makes many salient points, albeit in an at times discursively contradictory manner. The most controversial of these was the accusation that the work of some white South African artists continued the apartheid/colonial practice of representing the other as abject and denying those previously constructed as "other" their rightful voice, through their use of the black body. Particularly targeted, especially in the Geers and Oguibe texts, were woman artists who were criticised for using "falsely mediated" sisterhood in order to legitimate practice and access marginal positionaliry. The personalisation of this criticism (Lien Botha, Candice Breitz, Pippa Skotnes, Penny Siopis, and Minnette Vari were ail targeted) clouded the http://www.attthrob.co.za/99may/news.htm 2011/05/16 ArtThrob Page 7 of 10 Candice
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