Bua! Emergent Voices Conference - On the Internet, too!
Michele Sohn
Pressuming silence to mean no objections, here is the first posting:
"LIVING WITHOUT THE ENEMY."
by Gordon Metz
Paper prepared for session on
THE VIOLENCE OF REPRESENTATION/ THE REPRESENTATION OF
VIOLENCE
Johannesburg Biennale BUA! Conference
March 2-4, 1995
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INTRODUCTION
Though this would be a useful exercise, it is not my intention here to give an academic
analysis on how violence has been historically represented in South African visual culture. It
is not possible to condense the visualisation of over 300 years of violent history into a 15
minute presentation. But more importantly, this would require me to look back and I believe
that this occasion demands that we rather confront the present and look into the future.
In looking ahead, I will also not deal separately with how people in this country have struggled
for political, social, economic and cultural self-determination and self- representation on the
one hand and, on the other, how that struggle itself has been represented culturally. Violence
and the threat of violence has been used by a racial minority to achieve and maintain political
domination for over 300 years. And ongoing representations of history, culture, identity, have
been used to underpin, rationalise and justify this violence. The South African national
liberation struggle - in essence a struggle for self determination, for democracy, for the right
to self representation, - has perforce been a violent one too.
Finally, taking full advantage of our new climate of democracy I intend to say some harsh
things, which I hope will be seen as constructive criticism. We need to be more honest and
open, more critical, and more confident in our exchanges, if we are to try and disengage from the
past and embrace a new future.
In the short time available I will confine myself to 3 essential components of representivity, viz.:
* The individual character, ie., how the fundamental political transformation in our
country has impacted upon issues of representation and identity with regard to individual
creativity and aesthetics.
* Cultural institutions: their role, responsibilities and response to transformation,
representation and identity.
* The national and international arena, including how transformation, representation and
identity is mirrored by the Bienalle initiative itself.
1. REPRESENTATION AND IDENTITY - HOW DO WE AS INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS
MOVE FROM THE PAST INTO THE PRESENT?
Fundamental political shifts have taken place in our country which must impact on the way
we represent ourselves and the way we are in turn represented. We now have a formal
democracy. That this transformation was achieved through a negotiated settlement, in a
country with seemingly irreconcilable interests and identities rooted in a violent history,
has been hailed by the world as nothing short of a miracle.
Ironically, in fundamental ways this settlement has thrown South African art into a severe
crisis which challenges many artists. Whereas recent international art-making and cultural
discourse, (including debate on the issue of representation), has been characterised by
convoluted intellectual debate around "the other", our cultural expression has primarily
been starkly and unavoidably determined by the brutal confrontation with "the enemy".
But after April 27th "the enemy" has all of a sudden gone! What do we now paint,
photograph, write about? If you think post-modernism is problematic, try post-
apartheidism! Apartheid and violence made for powerful images, poignant stories, stirring
poems, heart-stopping film. The subject matter was here, there, everywhere. Even though
black artists were excluded from the mainstream, the apartheid theme (especially in the
1980's, as the balance of power changed) opened up avenues for people. Are we now to
paint about reconstruction and development? Are we now saddled with a neutered
negotiated culture? And can we learn to create again without "the enemy"?
2. CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS: WHAT ABOUT REPRESENTATION AND
IDENTITY?
Despite the macro political transformation, the old establishment cultural institutions
mostly remain intact. This must be an issue of particular concern for all of us. Power and
representivity are inextricably linked, and power in cultural practise significantly resides,
is expressed, manifested, and mediated, through our formal and informal cultural
institutions. What are the implications of this?
Firstly, we must humbly accept, as my colleague Andre Odendaal has put so well, that
because of their history, the majority of our establishment cultural institutions lack the
conceptual and intellectual capacity to deal with the challenges that the current political
changes present. Having excluded black South Africans in the past, they have themselves
become cut off from the main forces and sources of change and creativity in the country,
leading to a climate of intellectual sterility and insecurity. (In the over 400 museums and
galleries countrywide, the number of African curators or Africans occupying decision
making positions can be counted on one hand). In South Africa, whites have decided
which aspects of black culture are to feature and how these are to be displayed or
represented.
Secondly, we must also admit that the political transformation has thrown our cultural
institutions into a crisis. Ironically, whereas we now have a truly representative parliament
with regard to language, ideology, gender, and race, our cultural institutions nevertheless
remain essentially élitist, sexist and racist with regard to the makeup of the decision
making hierarchies within them. And we must accept that these institutions, given their
present make-up, can not claim to represent us in any way unless they become organic to
the broader political transformation taking place in the country. We must move away from
useless symbolic acts of political correctness and embrace fundamental and strategic
change.
Thirdly, we must understand that the subjective component of cultural representation and
identity is very problematic and demands compassion and sensitivity on the part of
curators and institutions. It challenges the very validity of our institutions, it questions
their imposed Eurocentric model, and it brings to the surface inevitable and uncomfortable
contradictions. It suggests that the relationship between the structure of our society and the
institutions that represent it are somehow out of sync. I give you but one example. The
largest proportion of our people are without adequate housing, have no electricity in their
shacks, are subject to the most terrible violence and insecurity, and have no access to
adequate health care. Many are poorly fed, unemployed, illiterate. Yet when they enter
our museums and galleries, they see themselves displayed in exhibitions situated in
sumptuous colonial buildings, safe and secure behind glass, policed by attendants, well lit,
well fed, well dressed, and in good health. We live in a country where museum objects
and art works are better off than human beings.
And then there is our history. Redress must not, and cannot, be seen in narrow
bureaucratic terms. Affirmative action is not only about jobs. It is also about redressing
our marginalised intellectual heritage. Under apartheid, the black majority was effectively
written out of history. We must question wether our cultural institutions, despite recent
efforts, are doing enough to re-claim this heritage, and wether they are even going about
it in the right way. Surely, at this critical juncture in our history, where the importance
of dealing with the past - with re-presenting the past - has been recognised as essential to
the process of healing in our country, eg., the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it
would have been appropriate for some of the exhibitions on this biennale to do so too!
3. THE BIENNALE - TRANSFORMATION, REPRESENTATION AND IDENTITY
I have attempted to highlight at some length some questions related to representation with
specific regard to our cultural institutions. I have done so in recognition of the power they
hold. Any self proclaimed initiative that does not consequentially dilute the hegemonistic
make-up of South African cultural institutions cannot claim to be addressing historical
imbalances. We must assess this Biennale in these terms. After all, the Biennale is an
institutional initiative - it was conceptualised by the establishment, funded by the
establishment, the agenda was set by the establishment. This is despite attempts to dilute
the "establishment" component of this Biennale through a seriously flawed process of
community engagement and "consultation".
This Biennale has its birth in a particularly problematic juncture in our political and
cultural history. The fact that it was announced as a fait accompli months before the
democratic elections in April 1994 and initiated by a functionary of an undemocratic,
unrepresentative, city council (at a time when horror stories were circulating in the liberal
cultural establishment that ANC "cultural commissars" were hell bent on diverting money
away from establishment cultural institutions to impoverished community arts projects),
prompted some, including myself, to question its motives. It exploited a genuine desire for
international exposure on the part of South African artists and an obvious interest by the
international community in anything to do with South Africa, and it is difficult not to see
it as a cynical attempt to initiate a process that could propel and entrench historical power
structures in the new era in a way that seriously hampers attempts at restructuring. I am
sorry to say that very little I have seen since has changed this perception.
As the Mother Of All Art Events, this Biennale is a major attempt at visioning ourselves
as a nation reborn. This also raises some fundamental questions.
Firstly, is the Bienalle a national event representing South African artists?. I think not. It
is a Johannesburg event. There are relatively few artists from outside Johannesburg
represented. People must be very careful when claiming to talk on behalf of nations,
especially a nation like ours which is in the process of being born. It bestows upon such
people an enormous responsibility, a word that is not used enough in our cultural
vocabulary.
Secondly, does it represent South African art to the world? Let me say right off that I have
serious problems with this whole notion of "South Africa's re-entry into the international
cultural arena"! South Africa and South African culture has never been off the world stage.
Maybe this Biennale signifies that white South Africans are re-entering the international
cultural mainstream. For me black South Africans have been part of it for several decades
at least via the liberation struggle the experience of exile. And anyway, are we as South
Africans even ready to re-enter the world when Soweto has yet to become part of
Johannesburg, when Khayalitsha must still become one city with Cape Town, when
Emphangeni has yet to enter Durban, etc. I am not here arguing for an inward looking
protectionism, but I am arguing against opportunistic attempts to leapfrog national cultural
priorities.
Then their is of course the question of the international involvement and representation in
this Bienalle. This is a particularly problematic issue. South Africans have struggled and
sacrificed for the right to speak to the world as a nation, as a people. In this struggle they
were supported by people all over the world who refused to allow, through the cultural
boycott, the representation of un-democratic South Africa abroad until democracy was
achieved. Yet at the very moment we have achieved the right to vision ourselves as a
people, this hard won right has been diluted, in my view, by a defensive, un-confident,
almost sycophantic engagement with the international community.
4. SOME POSSIBLE POINTERS TO THE FUTURE
It angers me to have to be so critical about an event that should have been sensitive to
these concerns in the first place. Having got rid of one enemy I don't want to make others.
I am bitter about having to stand on the sideline throwing stones. Having been forced into
exile to fight the enemy, I wont be forced into exile in my own country. I am reminded
of the story of the burglar who goes out at night to rob the houses of others, and out of
habit returns to his own house via the back window. I now want to be able to walk through
the front door. I want to be able to take responsibility for events like this. And is not the
issue of enabling people to take a collective responsibility for the future of our country the
national moral challenge? Certainly it is the moral issue that confronts us with regard to
representation and violence.
For we are talking about art, representation and violence in a country where the
perpetration of violence has itself become an art, and in a country where no collective
responsibility has been taken for the violence that bedevils us. We talk of "fascist
violence", of "revolutionary violence", of "black on black violence", of "criminal
violence" - these are all terms which by their very nature shift responsibility onto others.
But now our national moral agenda demands that we take collective responsibility for all
violence, whatever form it takes. And I passionately believe that our art, and the way we
represent our art, can inform and promote this new morality. This is our challenge and the
international community is looking at how we are going to deal with it.
I would like to conclude with the a story of an incident that for me somehow ties all these
issues of violence, art, morality, power, history, the present, and reconciliation together
in the most poignant way. It happened ten years ago. I was living in exile in Gaborone,
Botswana at the time. We knew the enemy were up to something and we were all put on
alert. A very close artist friend of mine came to pay me a visit in the dead of night. He
was in his thirties, one of South Africa's most talented black artists, and a true creative
intellectual. After many years working to establish internal structures for the ANC
underground, and at the same time struggling to practice as an artist, he had finally been
given clearance by the ANC to go abroad to study in an art academy in Europe. He had
come to say goodbye. He was incredibly excited. We sat reminiscing about our recent past
- the 1982 Culture and Resistance Festival and the community based structures that were
mushrooming up over the border as a result. We imagined when and how we would meet
again. We spoke, now admittedly romantically, about meeting again in a victory parade
in Pretoria, marching down the streets amongst the cheering crowds, AK's strung over our
shoulders. And then my friend said something that I have never forgotten. He said that on
the day of liberation he would not be in the parade, and that if I wanted to find him, I
would have to go to Jan Smuts airport. He was going to go there and try to convince the
"Boers" not to leave the country because, as he put it, if the "Boers" left the country then
South Africa would not be South Africa anymore and we may as well then live in any
other country. We hugged and said our goodbyes and he disappeared into the night.
Two days later he was dead - riddled with bullets after a South African commando raid
that left 14 people - artists, writers and musicians amongst them - dead. Those same
commando's stood on top of the cupboard that housed his drawings and shot magazine
after magazine through them. Before leaving, they turned on all the taps in the house to
flood and destroy anything they may have missed. The next morning, on SA television,
Captain Craig Williamson held up some of his drawings to the camera's of the world as
evidence of the terrorist hide out they had so bravely destroyed.
Thami Mnyele is no longer alive but he is still with us. I know that if he were here today
he would make a plea for us to learn to live and create without the enemy that tried so
desperately to destroy him and what he believed in. He would be demanding to come
through the front door. And if we can somehow learn from our history and our mistakes,
so that his generous spirit, and those of the many thousands of ordinary men and women
who died for democracy, can somehow infuse the way we represent ourselves as a people
to ourselves and to the world, then I have no doubt that the next Biennale will be a truly
South African one.