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Pxssy On A Plinth
This blog is written by a collective of black women: Nafeesa Didi Allie, Allyssa Herman, Lebogang
Mabusela and Yolanda Mtombeni, Pennelope Muduvhadzi, Zinhle Gule, Allyssa Herman,
Nthabeleng Masudubele, Boipelo Mtombeni, Janine Bezuidenhout, Lara Bekker.

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Approximation to Power: White Women in

Contemporary South African Art
The title of this essay is Approximation to Power: White Women in South African Contemporary Art. This
essay serves as a response to the topic posed by the History of Art course which was to “explore the
politics of contemporary art in South Africa, by using the texts of our choice by the authors Julius
Nyerere, Leopold Senghor, Malcolm X and Steve Biko”. It will look into how various social
hegemonic oppressions intersect and overlap in the contexts of Visual Art, Art History, and general
power institutions in South Africa. It will also explore the misrepresentations of black (female) bodies
by white educated women in the art context. We will also explore how the decolonized curriculum
and teaching structure form the backbone for transformation. This happens through an exploration
of the existing powers structures, the people who benefit from them, how professors play a role in
the culminating of knowledge that is feasible and how to create a new knowledge system that
interrogates, challenges and dismantles the current systems which are a consequence of colonialism.

Throughout the centuries, white heterosexual men have predominately dominated the art world and
were highly regarded for their contributions to art. This has helped shape how we interpret art today.
Artists such Paul Cézanne, Èdouard Manet and Georges Seurat (all white male artists) were known
for their impressionist styles which consisted of using techniques such as pointillism and other
means of capturing light. Black South African artists were influenced by these Western definitions
and labels. This is evident in the work that they produced through the depiction of typically “black
narratives” which consisted of township life. “The term, township art is an example of the patronizing
labelling system in academia” (Chinzima, 1999). Through this depiction, the audience that consumed
this type of work was predominately white. This was a result of how telling white domination in the
art industry is overwhelming, especially the dominance of white females. This was a result of the call
for transformation which was to redress gender and racial inequality, particularly in higher power
intuitions (Khan, 2006).

To further explore this claim, Kaolin Thompson, a former University of Witwatersrand student, was
heavily criticized for her Martienssen prize winning sculpture titled Useful Objects in 1996. It was a
ceramic ashtray resembling a black woman’s vagina with a half-smoked cigarette lying in the middle
(Schmahmann, 1999). Thompson had stated that she did not intend for her work to be specific to a

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race but wanted to address the objectification of women in society. Baleka Kgosistsile, former
National Assembly deputy speaker, voiced her request to remove the image of Thompson’s work
from the public eye. Kgosistsile reasoned her request by addressing that the stories and histories of
black women are contrasted by those of white women, therefore, it is crucial to identify specificity
when dealing with certain issues to prevent ignorant portrayals of others (Anonymous, 1996).

The topic of white women speaking about African discourses has always been fickle such that their
view is narrowed, no matter how experienced they are in that particular field. When thinking about
collecting items and placing them outside of their normal contexts, it is easy to misrepresent and omit
crucial information concerning those items. It is difficult for white women to position themselves in
situations where they can even begin to comprehend the work. They engage with these items with a
preconceived notion of understanding and interpretation. They place Western narratives and labels
upon them, therefore, feeding into the stereotypes created through power institutions.  By assigning
objects to single stories which are linked to power structures, this changes the narratives of these
objects and creates a definitive story for these objects. These single stories are problematic such that
they rob objects of their cultural significance by removing them from their ancestral ground to be
placed in areas to be viewed very perversely. It most importantly places emphasis on the differences
between the peoples who engage with it, further subjecting it to the gaze (Adichie, 2009).

As an annex, Candice Breitz, a white female artist, had re-photographed photo montages in 1996
titled the Rainbow series in which she had merged fragmented imagery of white and black women.
Her intention was to tackle the idea of women being represented as pornographic or sexual objects in
the media for their values as humans are being removed or disregarded for the male gaze. She had
received criticism for her manner of cutting the female body, stating that the white body was cut out
quite differently from the black body which was mostly limbs as opposed to the almost full forms of
the white bodies (Engseltezin, 2012)

The title could be derived from the notion of the rainbow nation post-1994 in which there was a
‘false’ unity of the people living in South Africa. She had used images of black women from a specific
context and cultural background with which nudity is part of cultural practice. Whereas the images
of the white women are considered taboo and inappropriate practice due to them being collected
from the objectification from the male gaze. There is an obvious complexity battle within the
representations of the female body. In this particular situation, these two narratives are mutually
exclusive to a certain point, therefore, the merging of these two representations results in an erasure
of the individual – specifically the black female body. This further perpetuates the mistreatment and
misrepresentations of the black body by white female academics.

Professor J.D. Jansen states that transformation becomes stagnant and to a certain extent redundant if
the progress under said transformation, is not monitored. It is easy to change policies and propose
strategic plans, vision statements and such, but are worthless if they do not measure the depth,
quality, and sustainability of transformation. Given the fixation of the approach through measuring
intelligence through aptitude rather than growth, and by trying to increase numbers of marginalized
peoples in predominantly white spaces, such as a university campus and expecting them to respond
to the curriculum in the same way as those who have previously benefitted from this system, is not
the way to move forward.

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By looking at the study of critical incidents, we better understand transformation. How an institution
responds and reacts to a critical incident speaks volumes about the manner and extent of
transformation than any document or measured output. This response tells how far the university
has moved towards the direction of transformation (Jansen, 2008).

This goes for the extended branches of an institution. The different ideologies and set structures
which are so-called ‘progressive’ are then called into question. In the case of the History of Art
department at the University of Witwatersrand, where there was an active engagement between the
lecturers and the students in trying to create a curriculum which would benefit all its participants
through the valuing of personal knowledge and experience and equating it to academic knowledge.
This ‘new’ system seemed progressive enough until it seemed as though it was taken too far. When
students actively wanted to be involved in the curating of a curriculum which they would partake in,
there seemed to be hesitance and reluctance concerning the power figures involved. It is important to
understand that decolonization does not begin and end in radical protest, but through the
dismantling and actively engaging in new ways of learning and acquiring knowledge.

Through the years of studying the fine art degree, we have come to learn that politics is something
that occurs throughout lived experiences; it is difficult to be apolitical. Art can be derived from
personal experiences such that the political is personal and the personal is political. “I believe, instead,
that politics touches every part of our lived experiences, regardless of the country in which we live, and so we
can’t help but make political statements via the things we choose to explore (or not explore) in our art.” (Pipe,
2017) In choosing to create work that does not speak to a political issue, renders the artwork political.

“The patriarchal Apartheid system had been replaced with a warped system that prioritized redressing gender
equality. Win for feminism perhaps, but in a country with more than 90% of its population being people of
colour, this was less than even half a win for transformation.” (Botha, 2015) Artworks or artefacts made by
South African women, such as beadwork, for example, which are founded by, and influence black
everyday life and lived experiences – a woman’s advancement into marriage or a girl into
womanhood – through this, the work becomes political. There is a misrepresentation of these objects,
based on how there is no recorded data on the artists.

In a country where the Wits Art Museum (WAM) houses most of the “African Art” collection, 5477
out of the 11000 objects come from the Standard Bank African Art Collection (SBAAC) as indicated by
Julia Charlton in Activate/Captivate: Collections re-engagement at Wits Art Museum. This speaks volumes
to a number of black creatives, particularly black women, like Esther Mahlangu and Nesta Nala, who
make artworks that are now housed in the WAM collection storeroom (2015). These artworks are
being headed, written, curated, labeled, critiqued and controlled by white women. Why are black
women not in charge of the aforementioned roles? In Intellectuals and Power, Michel Foucault speaks
about how the masses know how to articulate themselves and therefore intellectuals now realize that
they are no longer needed to gain knowledge because the former knows far better how to express
themselves (Foucault, 1972).

Structures such as artworks, texts, institutions and art schools systematically gate keep and debar
intersectionality. South African contemporary art upholds white hegemony. Post-Apartheid South
Africa is an example of how we are still participating in an attempt at transformation – whether that
attempt is successful or not, is subjective. As black artists, although the attempt to move away from
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the appeal of the white gaze and keeping our politics away from white cubic spaces such as the
gallery space is often one that is in vain; it is still white women who possess the power to control
how these works move and how they are engaged with. An example of this systemic power could be
how Africans can render themselves expressionless when it comes to writing or speaking about
themselves, and their histories. Africans are removed, intellectually, from their geographical habitats,
their arts, crafts, objects and learn about them through white-western anthropologists, archaeologists,
and curators who actively use and extract from Africa as a knowledge base (Khan, 2007). This is why
a Black African scholar cannot write about African beadwork, basketry, African figures without
referencing Prof. Emeritus Anitra Nettleton, who as a white woman, cannot even speak an African
language which is important to the work she is known for.

Looking at the kinds of women in power positions in art institutions, we need to explore the
demographics and identities of these women. This was successful in addressing the gender
inequalities, but does it address racial inequalities? The answer is no.

According to the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA) in 2011; “… the breakdown of male and
female business owners, 47% to 53%, is relatively gender-equal until you look at their employees. In senior and
middle management, a dramatic 43% are white women and 16% black women – the smallest segment – making
a total 59% women.

In terms of racial transformation, the 60% of employees of colour sounds positive. But the overwhelming
majority – 77% – of these are technical ancillary and volunteer positions. On a management level, there are
only 34% people of colour. In terms of overall employment, white men are the most marginalized at 15%…”
(Botha, 2015).

In the majority of previously white South African universities, the staff is almost entirely white.
“However, being white does not necessarily mean being anti-transformation the same way, being black is not
synonymous with transformation.” (Maserumule, 2015)

Transformation, in its most important phase, begins in the lecture hall. According to Achille
Mbembe’s Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive (2016) text, he claims that the
consensus is that part of what is wrong with our institutions of higher learning is that they are
‘Westernized’. It is important when forming a new knowledge and curriculum that we do not only
think about the present but also how it can be sustained. This will inform the way people think and
the way people speak and engage in various languages and contexts.

How do we then go about transforming the curriculum in higher education today? According to
Harry Garuba’s article in the Mail and Guardian in April of 2015, he stated that the first step to
creating a new curriculum is to recognize the cultural and scientific production – the knowledge – of
previously marginalized people such that the new government of 1994 was supposed to fix these
irregularities in universities as well. This can be done in two ways:

1. “In your own discipline, you may, first, want to adopt a content-driven additive approach and expand the
curriculum already in place. Or you may want to adopt the different approach of thinking about how the

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object of study itself is constituted, what tools are used to study it and what concepts are used to frame it.
This is because analytical tools and concepts may marginalize some students and privilege others.
2. Contrapuntal analysis (a musical term that has to do with two melodic lines played
simultaneously) takes into account the perspectives of both the colonized and the colonizer, the interwoven
histories – without necessarily syncing them to the other while erasing the other.” (Garuba, 2015)

The texts prescribed were not included, based on how this alternative project came about. There was
an active decision not to use those texts because we felt as though they were limiting. Given the
context of this paper, it was an uninformed decision on the lecturer’s part because these writers were
black men who were at the forefront of Black Consciousness. Although we do agree with some of the
ideas that they explore, they were somewhat problematic for they were not inclusive of black women
and that is the standpoint of which we formed the basis of this essay, therefore;

In conclusion, it is important to note that in the process of trying to create our own narratives,
definitions and modes of understanding, there will always be barriers because as long as there are
existing power structures that are put in place to benefit a certain kind of person and silence another,
there needs to be effective dismantling of these power structures by those who hold the power. To
quote Emma Bedford, “Where are the black women who are producing works about their position, their
location in history and society, and their particular perspectives?” (Bedford, 1999)

To answer Bedford’s question, the attempts that we have made throughout this course and in our
personal practices are small steps to dealing with these oppressive systems, understanding them and
reclaiming them to make them work for us.

References
 

1. Adichie, C. N., 2009. The danger of the single story, San Francisco: TED.
2. Anonymous, 1996. Is this an insult to black women?. [Online]
Available at: http://mg.co.za/article/1996-08-16-is-this-an-insult-to-black-women
(http://mg.co.za/article/1996-08-16-is-this-an-insult-to-black-women)
[Accessed 5 September 2017].
3. Bedford, E., 1999. Antibodies: Misrepresentations of the body in South African art discourse. In: B.

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Atkinson & C. Breitz, eds. Grey Areas: Representations, Identity, and Politics in Contemporary South
African Art. Johannesburg: Chalkham Hill Press.
4. Botha, N., 2015. Where Hypervisibility Meets True Transformation in the Arts. [Online]
Available at: https://mg.co.za/article/2015-03-05-where-hypervisibility-meets-true-
transformation-in-the-arts (https://mg.co.za/article/2015-03-05-where-hypervisibility-meets-
true-transformation-in-the-arts)
[Accessed 6 September 2017].
5. Charlton, J., 2015. What’s In The Storerooms? Unpacking The Genesis And Growth Of The Wits Art
Museum Collections. Activate/Captivate: Collections re-engagement at Wits Art Museum.
Johannesburg: Wits Art Museum, p. 20.
6. Chinzima, P., 1999. Point of No Return in Contemporary South African Art: Reflections of Past,
Present and the Future. In: B. Atkinson & C. Breitz, eds. Grey Areas: Representations, Identity and
Politics in South Africa in Contemporary Art. Johannesburg: Chalkham Hill Press, p. 85.
7. Engseltezin, 2012. Candice Breitz Art Review. [Online]
Available at: http://engselftenzin.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/8/
(http://engselftenzin.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/8/)
[Accessed 5 September 2017].
8. Foucault, M., 1972. Language Counter – Memory Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michael
Foucault [Interview] 1972.
9. Garuba, H., 2015. What is an African curriculum?. [Online]
Available at: http://mg.co.za/article/2015-04-17-what-is-an-african-curriculum (http://mg.co.za
/article/2015-04-17-what-is-an-african-curriculum)
[Accessed 05 09 2017].
10. Henry, A., 2004. Not My Mother’s Sister: Generational Conflict and Third-Wave Feminism. 1st Edition
ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
11. Jansen, J. D., 2008. But our natives are different! Race, knowledge, and power in the academy’. In:
1. Edition, ed. Social Dynamics. Durban: University of Durban Westville, pp. 106-116.
12. Khan, S., 2006. Doing it for daddy. [Online]
Available at: http://www.sharlenekhan.co.za/articles/Publications
/08.%202006%20Art%20South%20Africa.pdf (http://www.sharlenekhan.co.za/articles
/Publications/08.%202006%20Art%20South%20Africa.pdf)
[Accessed 5 September 2017].
13. Khan, S., 2007. Gatekeeping Africa. Artlink, Volume 27, pp. 51-55.
14. Maserumule, M., 2015. Why Africa’s professors are afraid of colonial education being dismantled.
[Online]
Available at: https://www.google.co.za
/search?q=the+conversation+why+africa+professors+are&
oq=the+conversation+why+africa+professors+are&aqs=chrome (https://www.google.co.za
/search?q=the+conversation+why+africa+professors+are&
oq=the+conversation+why+africa+professors+are&aqs=chrome)..69i57j69i64.28807j0j7&
sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#
[Accessed 5 09 2017].
15. Pipe, M., 2017. On the Politics of Art. [Online]
Available at: colostate.edu/on-the-politics-of-art/
[Accessed 5 September 2017].
16. Schmahmann, B., 1999. Censorship, Censoriousness and a Colourful Commotion: The Useful
Objects Controversy. In: B. Atkinson & C. Breitz, eds. Grey Areas: Representations, Identity, and
Politics in Contemporary South African Art. Johannesburg: Chalkham Hill Press.

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