John Peffer. Art and the End of Apartheid. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009. xxii + 339 pp. Illustrations. $29.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8166-5002-6. Reviewed by Pamela Allara Published on H-AfrArts (July, 2009) Commissioned by Jean M. Borgatti (Clark Univeristy) This book is a most welcome addition to the My major problem with this book is in its or‐ existing literature on the history of art in South ganization. Art and the End of Apartheid attempts Africa. It purports to cover the years of censor‐ to contribute to an inclusive South African art his‐ ship and struggle during the latter stages of tory by bringing into focus the careers of black apartheid: 1976-1994, a period of artistic produc‐ South African artists whose adoption of mod‐ tion that has been designated as “resistance art.” ernism has, in some cases, kept them marginal‐ Peffer broadens out this category, and, substitut‐ ized in the misleading and often derogatory cate‐ ing the terms "oppositional" or "activist," traces gory of "township art." Peffer’s well-researched the complicated relationships between politics examination of the careers of artists such as Ger‐ and aesthetics with thoroughness and a solid his‐ ard Sekoto, Madi Phala, and in a separate chapter torical grounding. The South African art world, that is the centerpiece of the book, Durant Sihlali, then as now, was fraught with internecine battles, are illuminating and argue forcefully for their im‐ and Peffer works his way through the contested portance. However, the average reader may ini‐ issues with admirable evenhandedness. Although tially feel a bit misled. Given its broad general ti‐ some of the text is based on his doctoral disserta‐ tle, one might assume that this is a survey text tion for Columbia University (2002), the writing that will provide a balanced coverage of the vis‐ style is free of academic jargon; indeed, it is lucid ual arts in South Africa during this crucial period. and articulate, resulting in a scholarly book that is As interesting and important as this text is, how‐ a pleasure to read. Peffer is an expert in the feld ever, it is episodic, and because of its implied goal of modern and contemporary South African art of redress, includes some topics of lesser interest. and visual culture, and with this book he has pro‐ The result is that optimally this book should be vided a valuable contribution to its revisionist his‐ read in tandem with other recent publications, tory. such as those on the Rorke’s Drift Art and Craft H-Net Reviews Centre and the Polly Street studios, as well as clas‐ and pejoratively, termed ‘township art’” (p. 5). Be‐ sics such as Sue Williamson’s Resistance Art in fore returning to this topic, and Sekoto’s consider‐ South Africa.[1] In sum, if one abandons the hope able influence on black artists under apartheid, of fnding the ideal required text for a survey he tackles the prickly issue of modernist primi‐ course, Art and the End of Apartheid provides de‐ tivism and the black artist. To illustrate the com‐ tailed discussions of complex topics that a broad‐ plexities of founding an African modernism that er treatment might of necessity gloss over. (I must would reference indigenous cultures, he uses the confess here that this criticism may be a genera‐ example of Ndebele mural painting, which was tional thing. As a student in the 1960s, I was just being "discovered" by the white art world in taught that "unity" and "coherence" were of para‐ the 1950s. Its most prominent exponent was the mount importance in a text, whereas the current Amadlozi (spirit of our ancestors) group founded generation is all about sampling.) by dealer Egon Guenther in 1963, with its "settler From the outset the author is clear that his primitivism" exemplified by the work of Cecil aim is “ to examine the development of an opposi‐ Skotnes and Sydney Khumalo, the influential tional, non-racial aesthetic practice … [by tracing] teachers at the Adult Non-European Recreation the historic predicament of urban-based black Center on Polly Street. This cubist-expressionist artists, their relations with white artists, and their style is contrasted with that of more naturalistic struggle for cultural and political representation painters such as Sekoto. Having established the through art” (p. xv). One of the central arguments two poles of modern art in the early apartheid of this book, also set forward clearly in its intro‐ years, Peffer then of necessity plunges into the duction, is that black and white artists operated in thicket of the critical assessment of township art. "grey areas," multiracial and intellectually sophis‐ He concedes that much of the art is repetitious, ticated urban zones that produced a hybrid aes‐ and because it contains little or no reference to thetic. This concept, so redolent of the ideal of politics of the era may stand accused of the "aes‐ non-racialism on which the Constitution would be theticization of poverty" for its white patrons. But based after 1990, is an inspiring one: the arts he gives space to David Koloane’s counter-argu‐ were not only not a "frill," but provided a model ment that township art was a sort of collective for the future, democratic South Africa. Indeed, in memory of the difficult living conditions blacks chapter 1, “Grey Areas and the Space of Modern endured under apartheid, a concept to which Pef‐ Black Art,” Peffer states bluntly that “as the state’s fer returns in his chapter on Sihlali. In his intrigu‐ segregationist program became more onerous af‐ ing conclusion to the summarized debate, Peffer ter the 1950s, it was the ‘black art scene’ that pre‐ argues that “black artists used modernism (and served the promise of a future nonracial South perhaps even self-primitivizing imagery) as a way Africa” (p. 5). If this claim seems a bit exaggerat‐ to share in the culture of the colonizer, at a time ed, nonetheless Peffer does successfully argue for when apartheid ideology explicitly denied and vi‐ the aesthetic and political significance of the art olently suppressed any signs of an in-common‐ created from the Soweto uprisings to the frst ness of cultures" (p. 34). He ends the chapter with democratic elections. the statement that the history of the struggle for representation in South African art should begin Gerard Sekoto serves as the representative of "here," although it is unclear what "here" means the emergence of this hybrid aesthetic, and Peffer exactly. is at pains to separate Sekoto’s depictions of ev‐ eryday life from the "repetitive, sentimental, self- During the 1960s, with the rise of Black Con‐ regarding and limited set of styles collectively, sciousness and the increasingly violent repression of the black majority, the cubist-expressive wing 2 H-Net Reviews represented by Polly Street artists such as Sydney poste to "township art" and all it repressed, in‐ Kumalo and Ezrom Legae along with the most cluding rape, violence, and robbery. It is an indeli‐ prominent artist to emerge during the 1960s, Du‐ ble image of the body in pain. mile Feni, took precedence over the naturalistic Chapter 3, “Culture and Resistance; Activist wing of township art, and, according to Peffer, Art and the Rhetoric of Commitment,” is devoted was “a crucial precursor to the Black Conscious‐ to the art and ideology of Thamsanqa "Thami" ness Movement.” In addition, these artists were Mnyele, who as a leader of the Medu Art Ensem‐ part of the global youth culture that broke down ble while in exile in Botswana, developed the con‐ barriers between the arts, moving "toward a more cept of an art of struggle created by cultural work‐ inclusive nexus of politics, performance, music, ers. This crucial movement in South African art visual art, and poetry” (pp. 50-51). In chapter 2, has yet to be adequately charted, and Peffer is “Becoming Animal: The Tortured Body During correct when he argues that the Culture and Re‐ Apartheid,” Peffer argues that the depiction of sistance Festival in Gabarone in 1982 was “an bodies reduced to the state of sacrificial animals apogee moment for the ‘grey areas’ that had been was a metaphor for the actual torture of detainees preserved in the South African art world up to by the apartheid regime, as well as its monstrosity that time” (p. 97). Curiously, he barely mentions in general. Unfortunately, Peffer’s discussion of parallel developments within South Africa itself, the key examples of this trend, Feni’s Guernica which collectively came to be known as the resis‐ (1967) and Legae’s "Chicken Series," the latter a tance art movement. For example, Sue reaction to the death of Steve Biko in 1977, are not Williamson’s work as an artist-activist is not dis‐ illustrated. Thus when he places Paul Stopforth’s cussed, and Gavin Younge and CAP receive only a Biko series (1981) and Jane Alexander’s Butcher passing mention. I simply cannot understand Boys (1985-1986) within the expressionist art of such omissions, even if--and this remains unstat‐ political critique, the recontextualization of these ed--a major goal of the book is to plug holes in the iconic works of resistance art seems a bit forced. current historical accounts of South African art However, Peffer does carefully ground Stopforth’s under apartheid. work in the nonracial cultural arena of the Mar‐ Instead of a larger discussion of resistance ket Theatre and Gallery, located in the grey area art, Peffer moves quickly in the next chapter to of Newtown, and Stopforth was certainly a key the phenomenon of young township boys who, player in the vibrant nonracial social scene de‐ unable to go to school after the 1976 Soweto riots, scribed in the previous chapter.