Editor’s Note: Go to the latest Publisher’s Blog tab for more information about the International Art Critics Association conference, prepared by Edward Rubin, ARTES Contributing Editor, to learn more about the venue for this presentation. Other papers from the AICA proceedings will appear in ARTES in the near future.

The following paper, delivered as a talk – “White/Black/Grey Areas: Reflections on Transition in South African Art” – funded by the Getty, was delivered by Karen von Veh, Associate Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Johannesburg.  Utilizing artworks that employ iconography as allegory to reflect both the past and current social and political milieu, von Veh presented a brief survey of the effects and after-effects of cultural isolation in South Africa, as a counter-point to the post-totalitarian experiences of some European countries.

The title of this presentation has particular resonances for South Africa as the notion of black and white has been fundamental to both the development and the isolation of South Africa for many years. Our political maladministration under the Afrikaner Nationalist Party plunged the country into a cultural vacuum with the imposition of the separate development laws (known as apartheid) in 1948. The resultant international cultural boycott, which could be metaphorically allied with a cultural black hole in South Africa, lasted officially until 1994 when the African National Congress (ANC) became the dominant party in the first free democratic elections; allowing South African artists to participate internationally for the first time in 46 years. Post-apartheid South Africa is still in a transitory phase of readjustment, however, and Annie Coombes explains in her introduction to History After Apartheid (2004:1): “the difficult task of setting up a workable economic, political, and cultural infrastructure that adequately represent[s] the transition to democracy ha[s] only just begun.” artes fine arts magazine 

Perhaps our situation is not too dissimilar to that of post-totalitarian European countries as the Nationalist government was a one party state that rigidly controlled social and political life and cultural production for 40 years. South Africa, however, has still not recovered from the scars of the past regime. We now have, arguably, the best constitution in the world [i], yet there are on-going social ills that are a legacy of past injustices, necessitating a continuation of the resistance and protest approach to art that characterised the apartheid years. Coombes (2004:114) points out that the national agenda for art in our complex political and social milieu might, therefore, follow a path that diverges from the perceived expectations of an international audience; thus perpetuating our position on the periphery. In this paper, therefore, I consider the social and political factors that inform the development of South African art using selected examples ranging from apartheid to the post-apartheid era, within the framework of appropriated religious imagery.

Christian iconography in South African art is my area of research, but it is also an area that is particularly pertinent to the South African situation. Many of the first settlers came to South Africa as missionaries who attempted to impart European culture and a Calvinistic work ethic along with the word of God. The Afrikaner Nation also had a sense of divinely inspired superiority and a firm belief that God had created them for a particular purpose. That is clearly evident in the following statement made by The Dutch Reformed Church’s Federal council in 1935:

“The church is deeply convinced of the fact that God, in His wise counsel, so ordained it that the first European inhabitants of this southern corner of darkest Africa should be men and women of firm religious convictions, so that they and their posterity could become the bearers of the light of the Gospel to the heathen races of this continent” (quoted in Bloomberg 1990:27).

The patriarchal attitude evoked by these words indicates a binary power structure that institutionalised subservience as a result of the mis-use of Christian dogma, which, in the words of Black Consciousness activist Stephen Biko (2006:61), was corrupted by its adaptation as a tool for the “colonisation of people”. Furthermore the Nationalist party ensured that it became “the ideal religion for the maintenance and subjugation of the same people” [ii] thus ensuring the perpetuation of black bondage (Biko 2006:61).

Left: Fig.2: Charles Nkosi. ‘Crucifixion III, Submission to Death’ (1976). Linocut, 34 x 23 cm.

Several artists (Fig 1 and 2: Charles Nkosi’s Pain on the Cross I; and Crucifixion III, above) working in the apartheid era created works that employ religious iconography as a vehicle for ‘struggle’ commentaries, to promote freedom from an oppression that Christian teaching was culpable in enforcing, so a black Christ as the saviour for the black nation was typical in many examples. There were sometimes specific references to the political status quo, such as in Azaria Mbatha’s Herod and the Wisemen (1965)[iii]. The holy family and shepherds are clad in Zulu traditional garb while the white Herod is not only associated by Mbatha with apartheid prime minister, Hendrik Verwoerd, but is dressed in the ruffled collar, called a plisser, which was usually worn by the more traditional and conservative white missionaries in the area. Mbatha thus comments directly on the complicity of Christianity in the oppressive South African political regime

A more confrontational approach was taken by a ‘coloured’[iv] Cape Town artist, Ronald Harrison, in 1961 when he painted Black Christ (Fig. 3). Unlike Mbatha’s careful use of allegory this image presents a literal rendition of Nobel Laureate Chief Albert Luthuli’s crucifixion in the guise of a Christ figure, complete with loincloth and crown of thorns. At the time the painting was made Luthuli was leader of the ANC – thus he is easily identifiable as a moral leader, freedom fighter and role model for the black majority. He is flanked by Hendrik Verwoerd and B.J. Vorster (Nationalist prime minister at the time), both in Roman military dress. These figures encapsulate both the inception and promulgation of oppressive apartheid policies so the revolutionary anti-apartheid message is explicit. Black Christ was made in response to the Sharpeville massacre of 1961 and the banning of Chief Albert Luthuli, and is thus overtly political in both conception and iconography [v].

Censorship was inextricably associated with the Nationalist apartheid state from its inception and was one of the means used to ensure compliance and control. Magreet de Lange (1997:13) notes that it could be understood as an ideology that demonstrated the central elements of apartheid: “dominance of Afrikaner interests, Christian morals, and the protection of the Afrikaner state” (de Lange 1997:16). Harrison’s painting was almost immediately labelled blasphemous and subversive and was censored on the basis that “it was calculated to give offence to the religious convictions and feelings of a section of the population”[vi]. Ronald Harrison was then arrested by security police and repeatedly interrogated and tortured over a seven day period (Hamilton 2004).

Harrison’s fate became a cautionary tale to subsequent black artists in South Africa as many of them, responding to the message of resistance promoted by Black Theology, couch their images in allegory and metaphor rather than blatantly depicting subversive political commentary[vii]. Biko (2006:64) explains that Black Theology: “seeks to relate the present-day black man to God within the context of the black man’s suffering and his attempts to get out of it” and Charles Nkosi’s series of linocuts entitled Pain on the Cross IV, 1976 (not pictured); and Crucifixion II, 1976 (Fig, 4, above left), respond to this statement. Nkosi’s prints were made in the same year as the Soweto uprising which initiated an increasing militancy in black resistance groups. They are not as politically confrontational as Harrison’s image, however, as resistance is portrayed purely through the symbol of a suffering Christ, with expressively distorted limbs, dramatic angles and visible bonds or wounds, and therefore remains within the accepted parameters of religious interpretation. Political propaganda, as in Charles Nkosi’s Premonition of the Hour, 1976 (Fig. 5, above right), is conflated with the Christian doctrine of salvation so Christ’s suffering is directly equated with black suffering under apartheid and the religious message of His resurrection and triumph over sin and death is a metaphor for the ultimate redemption and victory of the people.

White artists were in a better position to confront injustice as they were less likely to ‘disappear’ overnight into police cells and had more access to legal representation when necessary.  They were working within the narrow and protective structures of galleries and universities, both difficult if not impossible for black artists to engage with. The resultant freedoms allowed white artists to provocatively critique governmental structures and the implication of Christianity as a mechanism of control. Thus in 1981 Paul Stopforth could commemorate the torture and murder of Steve Biko by security police (in 1977) in his graphite drawing titled Elegy (Fig. 6, upper right).  The naked body of Biko is presented as a martyred icon with reference to Holbein’s Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521-22) or Andrea Mantegna’s Dead Christ (c.1490, lower, right).  The pathos of his insubstantial corpse is contrasted with a flat red background that resonates with the red and black resistance posters screaming anger and defiance.  At the time Biko was considered subversive and identified by the government as a terrorist so Stopforth was running the risk of censorship with this work and, indeed, had subsequent works banned[viii].

In 1987 Diane Victor produced an image of John Vorster as a bloated, degenerate dictator in The Problem with being a God These Days (Fig. 7). His halo is made from the insignia of the South African Police force, who reinforced and maintained Nationalist policies, emphasising the conflation of state and religious power. The police insignia also floats in the upper register on the left encircling an anonymous face (pertaining to be God) with a hand that is raised in blessing over a blasted and desolate landscape. This work blatantly critiques organized religion and its legitimisation of political exploitation. Rather than working within a religious framework, therefore, Victor’s drawing parodies religious imagery for political purposes, and thus partakes in actively seeking out points of dissidence in Foucault’s web of power relations.

Michel Foucault (2000:47-49) proposes that religious control and state control of society had merged by the twelfth century. Social control can be identified therefore as one of the core strategies in the history of Christianity, which can be read in Foucault’s terms as a history of power and regulation of the masses. It is not the spirituality of religious iconography, however, but the underlying social messages in such imagery that is brought into question by contemporary artists. In this way I propose that they are following Foucault’s precepts by producing what he termed “an ontology of the present” (Foucault 1980:88-96). In other words an investigation of the particular historical conditions that result in ‘truths’ and values underpinning our society today; by posing questions or presenting imagery that is intended to disturb us and undermine our sense of certainty.

In South Africa today, identification with a saviour/martyr is no longer deemed necessary so contemporary artists employ what I would identify as a form of religious ‘iconoclasm’ to topple the false idols of social and political power in the new regime[ix]. By parodying sacred imagery these artists are able to disturb complacent viewing and encourage viewers to engage critically with underlying implications that may not be apparent in the original context, particularly those relating to the historic misappropriation of Christianity as a language of power and the narrow interpretation of male and female identity promoted by Christian role models. With this more critical approach a black Christ and martyr can be transformed into a gay pinup as seen in the Ultimate Adoration (Fig. 8), a homoerotic image by Diane Victor that comments on the ongoing homophobia prevalent in African cultures and in church doctrine.

Christ also becomes a dispossessed Afrikaner male in the New South Africa who is surrounded by the graves of the old Nationalist leaders. This image is by the comic book artist Conrad Botes, one of the founders of the iconoclastic and darkly humorous Bittercomix (see Fig. 12, below, right), which aims to topple the ‘sacred cows’ of Afrikaner social politics. He also exhibits as an artist with equally satirical paintings and sculpture presented in the direct graphic style developed for comic book imagery. His reverse painted glass roundel shows a parody of Christ cradling a penis instead of a lamb. Entitled the Good Shepherd (Fig. 9), Christ is presented as the saviour of a lost masculine identity in a world of post feminism and metrosexuality and the erosion of traditional roles that were entrenched by patriarchy.

Another version of Christ as a symbol conflating both state and religious control is shown in Commune Suspension of Disbelief, by Wim Botha, who presents a traditional Christ figure carved out of bibles and bible text in the eleven official languages of South Africa. This figure is surrounded by several CCTV cameras that record the comings and goings of visitors, reminding one of the famous line “Big Brother is watching you” from George Orwell’s book 1984. One of the images recorded by the cameras is of people entering the space, standing at the Foot of the Crucifix (Fig. 10) and looking up like supplicants or mourners in countless crucifixion scenes encountered in art historical images. The supplicant requesting forgiveness also evokes notions of control, illustrated in the CCTV cameras as instruments of state regulation over the populace. As Foucault (2000) points out, regulation and control requires rules and their enforcement. Development from faith as an abstract spiritual notion to the formulation of rules and codes of conduct, as organised religion takes over from spirituality, is visually expressed in the raw materials of Commune: Suspension of disbelief, as the written bible contains the rules and guidance for daily living. The physical manifestation of those rules is embodied literally in a ‘figurehead’ suspended above the heads of his ‘supplicants’ with CCTV cameras as his all-seeing eye, revealing a status quo that is underpinned by a conflation of state and religious control. This alludes to the appropriation and adaptation of specific religious precepts that underpinned the Afrikaner Nationalist regime in South Africa where the Nationalist party used their interpretation of Christianity and the Bible to legitimise their discriminatory reign and their belief in apartheid. Bloomberg (1990:10,11) notes that from the first Calvinist settlers in 1652, Afrikaner nationalists fervently believed in their God given duty as custodians of the new nation allowed them to enforce their views of biblical truth on the social structure of South Africa, that is “its continued fidelity to Christian norms, the illumination of God’s word over everything, and the Bible as the source of truth for all political life.”

Botha’s Premonitions of War Scapegoat, (Fig. 11) is a political work commenting on the age old principal of shifting blame to an innocent party. This piece caused controversy merely because it has been understood as a representation conflating Christ and the devil. Some people overlooked its primary preoccupation and concentrated only on what was perceived to be blasphemous because of the strength of the religious implications, so there was what Botha (2008) referred to as “a massive knee jerk reaction” based on the reverence with which Christians consider representations of their crucified saviour. In analysis the inference of blasphemy is diffused. The wood is carved in sections and appears unfinished at the back as if it has been pieced together like a puzzle, linking the central figure and the panels of six dramatic views of clouds and sky on either side which are actually framed jigsaw puzzles. The ‘pieced together’ nature of a puzzle, that slowly accumulates into a coherent image, alludes to the construct that has been assembled over millenia of heaven as ‘somewhere up there in the sky’. By association the fragmented figure in between is also revealed as a construct who floats ambiguously conflating the identity of a religious ‘saviour’ and a comic book saviour such as superman speeding through the sky to ‘save’ humanity.

A Scapegoat is inherently a victim; the term originated in the Old Testament ritual of Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16:8-10) where a goat was symbolically burdened with the transgressions of the Jewish nation and then beaten and sent into exile in the desert, carrying away past iniquities to ensure a clean slate for the new year. Perhaps it is this conflation of goat and sinfulness that resulted in the popular western image of the devil as a creature half goat, half man with cloven hooves, a tail and horns. Ironically the Christian crucifixion is also a pure example of the scapegoat principle. Christ is the carrier of sins, the innocent one that bears the blame and is unjustly punished for all. Botha’s work is merely combining the two visual images that historically express the same principle. The fact that it looks like Christ and the devil is merely a result of the manipulation of religious imagery over centuries.

The diversity of approaches, and the wide range of concerns that they address, indicate the dynamic nature of power and resistance that Foucault (1990:92,93) has described as a network or web, in that these power relations support or undermine the ruling hegemony in a fluid, ever-changing manner [xi]. The crystallisation of power in laws, rules and social expectations is always unstable and vulnerable to replacement through the actions of dissidents and revolutionaries of one sort or another. Artists are just such dissidents; they raise awareness of certain injustices promoted by current structures of power and perform the vital function of disturbing society’s conscience by revealing “an ontology of the present”. At the same time they are part of this present society and work within its structures (Foucault 1990:94). This is important for what might be termed contemporary iconoclasm, in that the works discussed here perhaps question not only the ‘sacred’ value of the images that they parody, but also the social expectations conveyed by those images.

The relevance of a contemporary art that exposes injustice might seem unnecessary because South Africa now has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world guaranteeing freedom and equality for everyone regardless of social, ethnic, religious or sexual orientation. Despite the guarantee of freedoms on paper, however, South African society is permeated by violence, inequality, injustice and intolerance. Our government is tainted by corruption and nepotism while more insidious controls arise from a revival of African ‘traditional’ values which promote the domination of women and a denial of gay rights as ‘un-African’. The origins of violence in South African society have been analysed by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) and their findings, according to Steven Hunt (2003), indicate that very little has changed since the end of apartheid[xii]. Hunt (2003) notes: “South Africa’s high rate of violent crime is just as related to economic and social marginalisation as it was during the 1980s.”

During the apartheid era violent protests and criminal acts were understood by the black community to be a form of resistance that would render the townships ungovernable and thereby promote political change. The struggle for equality thus legitimised crime and violence as a liberation strategy, however there is still a struggle for equality identified in economic terms with blatant displays of unequal distribution of wealth in the ‘new’ South Africa[xiii]. This inequality leads to the marginalisation of the dispossessed, and Hunt (2003) notes that marginalisation is at the root of patterns of violence in South Africa. Both Conrad Botes’ Cain and Abel, 2008 (Fig. 12, above right) and Wim Botha’s version of Premonition of War (Abraham and Isaac), 2005 (Fig. 13, below right), appear to illustrate this point of view and both function, in Botes’ (2009) words, as “a political allegory” told through a well-known and widely understood biblical/historical medium.

Botes’ interpretation takes on a particularly South African emphasis in the presentation of an Abel who is large, strong, white and apparently superior both physically and politically, the latter indicated in his direct communion with God. Cain, on the other hand, is poor, oppressed, dispossessed and black. Michael Stevenson (2009) refers to Botes’ story as “a detailed allegory of rivalry, jealousy, corruption and lust”, it is not, however, a simple tale of good and evil. Blatant social inequalities and the arrogance of Abel are presented, not as just cause, but as mitigating factors for Cain’s actions, and we are left at the end feeling sorry for the wretched dispossessed Cain weeping over his ‘brother’s’ grave in a barren desert [xiv]. Botha, on the other hand, inverts the role of Abraham and Isaac and shows the son slaughtering the father with no hope of a last minute reprieve by God. This inversion dilutes the mythology of the original story and raises questions about the notion of violence as an inherent part of people’s belief systems, and the effect this might have on society.

An example of the results of such violence can be seen in Diane Victor’s large smoke drawings on glass in a Gothic window framework titled No Country for Old Women (2013) (Fig. 14, left). The imagery commemorates several infamous rapes and murders that shocked South African society in the last year – beginning with the murder of Victor’s elderly aunt (Fig. 15: detail, left, below) (in the panel on the left) which inspired the title of the work. To the right of the central panel Annene Booysens, dressed in her own intestines and placed in her coffin-like frame, illustrates her recent gang rape and murder that shocked the South African public. In addition there are violent hate crimes, such as the rape and murder of black lesbians that have been reported in Cape Town and Johannesburg from 2007 to the present [xv]. One victim of these crimes is depicted by Victor with a bruised, beaten face and her lower half clothed in a coyote skin referring to the motto, ‘give a dog a bad name.’ Such atrocities and the general levels of violence in South African society are ascribed to the vast discrepancies in wealth and living standards that persist despite the new political dispensation. The aftermath of apartheid is clearly still affecting society and many artists are attempting to engage with the difficulties of transition on a country deeply scarred by the past as displayed in Botha’s apocalyptic vision of contemporary society in Joburg Altarpiece, 2009 (Fig. 16, below, right).

Continuing with the apocalyptic theme, I end with a recent large etching by Victor that concerns the cost involved in change, both spiritual and social; and considers what might replace the weakened nodes in Foucault’s ‘web of power relations.’ Entitled, 4 Horses: Bearer, 2010 (Fig.17), this image was part of a series of four horses relating very loosely to the four horses of the Apocalypse, thus indicating the end of something. The imagery in Bearer illustrates the intersection of African cultures and beliefs with Christianity, and the trauma of ideological change. The horse is covered with a strange hessian-like blanket suggesting an African version of chain-mail armour which functions as a protective covering. Victor (2010) explains that she studied the costumes of masquerade dancers in Burkina Fasso and tried to approximate the coarsely textured garments they wore during their performances. The accoutrements of shamanic dancers are also alluded to in cowrie shells adorning the horse’s back leg and tail. This figure is half horse, half human; it has human hands instead of front hooves, the head is actually a mask tied onto its body, and the eye is Victor’s own instead of the eye of a horse. In the tradition of shamanic dancers dating back to San [xvi] rituals the horse is actually a therianthrope, the result of a dancer’s conversion to the mythical realm of the spirits where he/she becomes one with the guiding animal spirit.

The horse is emblematic of African spiritual beliefs, but these beliefs are in a state of transitional distress, visible in the horse’s demeanour. The nearest hand is clutching a horseshoe with nails directed at the vulnerable inner palm, parodying the nails in Christ’s hands on the cross and conveying a sense of pain and anguish. The mouth is open as if gasping for breath and the head hangs downwards in despair. Victor (2010) describes the horse as engaging in a “leap of desperation” over the blackened wasteland depicted in its shadow. The landscape is burned, crops and farmhouses in ruins, both the old colonial buildings and the African land are blighted and fallow befitting an apocalyptic event.

The horse is contrasted with the helpless figure of a crowned ‘Madonna Immaculata’, who is strapped to its back while clutching her flaming heart. Her bare legs protruding below the shortened garments give her an air of incongruous vulnerability. Together they evoke the tradition of a scapegoat, burdened with the sins of the nation, being driven into the wilderness – a black hole where they will both die, allowing the nation to begin a new year afresh without being hampered by old traditions, old expectations or old mistakes. Perhaps this is Victor’s way of indicating a possible future for South Africa. She is not ignoring the problems of the past but is choosing to discard the effect and influence of both colonialism and African traditionalism in the effort to build a new nation that is not divided by conflicts arising from different histories. The difficulties of transition, discussed in the introduction, are manifest in the anguish depicted in both horse and Madonna, and the devastation of the wasteland below. Yet one could read this wasteland as an opportunity to rebuild without the looming shadow of the past threatening to tarnish efforts of renewal. This is, of course, a utopian dream which arises as an imaginative antithesis to the dystopian image presented by Victor, but, after all, it would be tantamount to giving up altogether if a nation did not dream and hope for a better future.

By Karen von Veh, Ph.D., Contributing Writer

Associate Professor of Art History, University of Johannesburg. South Africa.

From a presentation given at the International Art Critics Association (AICA) Congress in Kosice, Bratislava, September 2013. A video of Professor Karen von Veh’s presentation, along with other speakers, can be found on AICA Slovakia’s website or again by clicking on Recorded Lectures at:  http://www.aica.sk/video-19.html.

Read more about the rich history of this lecture series and its roots in Eastern Europe at: http://www.artesmagazine.com/2013/11/a-global-view-an-art-critics-perspective-on-international-trends/

All images except Fig. 3 are reproduced courtesy of the artists. Fig. 3 reproduced courtesy of IZIKO National Museum, Cape Town, South Africa.

End Notes:

[i] The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth. (excerpt from the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act, No108 of 1996. ss. 9.3).

[ii] These are Biko’s italics.

[iii] Mbatha’s criticism is nevertheless carefully couched in metaphor, and thus avoided the possibility of prosecution under the Publication and Entertainments Act of 1963. This act was ostensibly put in place to control “indecency, blasphemy and communist views” however opponents of the act noted: “the real aim was the wholesale control of dissidence” (Merrett 1994:61).

[iv] Coloured is the term used by the apartheid government to identify anyone of ‘mixed’ race.

[v] Despite the political implications it was first exhibited in St Luke’s Anglican Church in Salt River in 1962, indicating that this particular church was daringly aligning itself with a revolutionary branch of theological thought that resulted, later in the decade, in the Black Theology movement.

[vi] Before the South African government could have it destroyed the painting was smuggled out of South Africa and taken to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (Hamilton 2004) after which it toured England to raise money for the victims of apartheid.  Black Christ was returned to South Africa in 1997 and was kept in storage in the National Gallery in Cape Town (Hamilton 2004).  It was exhibited as part of the Cape Town Arts Festival in 2007 and now hangs in the National Gallery (Lockwood 2007).

[vii] Black Theology, which began in the 1960s, was a religious platform for opposition to apartheid oppression, racism and the erosion of indigenous cultures.  Christ was promoted as a confrontational saviour who actively challenged perpetrators of injustice and fought for truth and right; rather than the passive martyr seen in Harrison’s painting.

[viii] The Nationalist Government intervened to withdraw two of Paul Stopforth’s seemingly innocuous small graphite drawings that had been selected, with the work of other artists, to represent South Africa at the Valparaiso Biennial International Exhibition in 1981. The drawings were part of a series depicting Biko’s damaged hands and feet ensuing from his torture and death in detention. Stopforth renamed them Steve Biko and We Do It, to ensure that, as Shannen Hill (2005:18) points out, the Chilean viewers would be cognisant of South Africa’s culpability. The reason given for their withdrawal was their political content which the department did not wish to promote or finance overseas (Williamson 1989:112). The expected audience in this case would be international and possibly powerfully influential critics of South African politics and the titles of the works pointed too clearly to the South African government’s abuse of human rights. Stopforth was asked to change the titles and instead he chose Requiem for Allende I and II which related them to the murder of a popular Chilean president during the 1973 coup that instated Augusto Pinochet as the country’s leader. The South African Department of Education who was funding the South African contingent then decided that this would be offensive to the hosts, so despite the title change the works were still withdrawn, mainly because their human rights content was considered too political (Hill 2005:18). The banning in this case was not due to any form of blasphemy or criticism of the religious connotations of these images, but was purely a political decision to maintain an acceptable international profile for the South African Government.

[ix] When referring to the artists in this essay I use the terms iconoclasm and iconoclast as defined by Dario Gamboni (1997:255) who explains that iconoclasm in the mid nineteenth century was allied with the progressive aims of avant-garde artists, so an iconoclast was defined as one who attacks “cherished beliefs or venerated institutions on the ground that they are erroneous or pernicious” rather than one who physically smashes religious icons.

[x] Foucault (2000:201-202) explains that the classical models of power and social control in Western societies turned on issues of sovereignty and law, and thus required a figurehead (God or a King or ruler) to wield that power and control the masses by identifying and removing oppositional or marginal groups. The inclusion and conformity required for state control is historically demonstrated by Constantine’s expedient declaration of Christianity as an official state religion in AD 325. Through this decree he brought the two most powerful, and at the time opposing, regulatory mechanisms of his day into a cohesive patriarchal hegemony which has underpinned social power in the West for centuries.

[xi] Foucault (1990:92,93) explains that the sovereign or head of state is merely a terminal point in this multiplicity of force relations.

[xii] Hunt (2003) states that post-apartheid South Africa still has one of the highest murder rates in the world with over 22 000 people murdered in 2000.

[xiii] Hunt (2003) points to the examples of unequal distribution of wealth which are illustrated in the minority who can enjoy the constantly upgraded shopping centres or live in leafy suburbs with good schools nearby for their children, while many stay in shanty towns without adequate sanitation or legal electricity and still have to travel long distances to work.

[xiv] In his comic strips Botes has further developed the biblical tales of sibling rivalry as allegories of post-apartheid society and the colonial aftermath in his reinterpretation of the story of Jacob and Esau, and the tale of a birthright that was stolen by deception, which appeared in Bitterkomix #12 (2002). In the Bible (Genesis 27:1-40) the second son, Jacob, impersonates Esau to receive his dying father’s blessing and the inheritance reserved for the firstborn. Jacob and Esau are twins (Genesis 25: 23-25) but even before birth it is prophesied by God that the older will serve the younger. In Botes’ story one twin is white but the other is black representing in a very direct way the conflict in South Africa for land. The post-apartheid struggle for a country and its resources, and the culpability of the colonisers can also be found in Rats and Dogs, (published in French as Rats et Chiens by Cornelius in January 2009), which is also a political allegory told through the metaphor of fraternal rivalry between both Cain and Abel, and Esau and Jacob.

[xv] The International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission website (IGLHRC 2009) has a report on the trial of three men who gang-raped and stabbed a South African lesbian Eudy Simelane in April of 2008. Only one of the three was convicted of the murder and the report states that he showed no remorse. Moreover Monica Mbaru, IGLHRC’s African Program Coordinator, notes that she was appalled at the level of homophobia in the courtroom when she attended a hearing on the matter in July, to the extent that the Judge, Ratha Mokgoathleng, objected to the use of the word ‘lesbian’ in court. The report goes on to explain that Eudy Simelane is one of several examples of lesbian victims who were murdered execution style or by stoning, in both Johannesburg and Cape Town between 2007 and 2009, indicating a deep-rooted intolerance for homosexuality despite South Africa’s Constitutionally entrenched freedoms and rights (IGLHRC 2009).  In a more recent incident in June 2013, lesbian Duduzile Zozo (26) was found half naked, with a toilet brush jammed into her vagina in Thokoza, in the Gauteng East Rand.  She died from the internal injuries suffered in this horrific version of ‘corrective rape’ (Nandipha 2013). In the same newspaper article that reported on Zozo’s attack Kuthala Nadipha (2013) states: “At least 31 lesbian women have been brutally murdered in the last 10 years and it is reported that at least 10 lesbians are raped or gang-raped per week in Cape Town alone.”

[xvi] San is the term most generally used to denote the original hunter-gatherer peoples of Southern Africa (or ‘First People’). It must be noted, however, that both San and the other popular term, Bushmen, are considered problematic as they were employed, often pejoratively, by colonial settlers.

Sources:

A Ripple of Hope: Resources. [O]. Available: http://rfksafilm.org/html/black_christ.php Accessed: 10.2.2012

Biko, S. 2006. I Write What I Like: Steve Biko: a selection of his writings. Johannesburg: Picador Africa.

Bloomberg, C. 1990. Christian Nationalism and the Rise of the Afrikaner Broederbond, in South Africa, 1918-48. London: Macmillan.

Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act, No. 108 of 1996. Statutes of the Republic of South Africa – Constitutional Law.  [O]. Available:          http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/a108-96.pdf  Accessed: 25.01.2012.

Coombes, A.E. 2004. History After Apartheid: Visual Culture and Public Memory in a Democratic South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

De Lange, M. 1997. The Muzzled Muse: Literature and Censorship in South Africa. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Foucault, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977.Transl.and ed. C.  Gordon. New York: Pantheon.

_______. 1990. A History of Sexuality Vol.1: An Introduction. First published in French in 1976.             Transl. R. Hurley. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

_______. 2000. Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984. Vol.3. First published in French in 1994. Transl. R. Hurley and others. New York: The New Press.

Gamboni, D. 1997. The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Hamilton, R. 2004. The Return of South Africa’s Black Christ. BBC News. [O]. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/3867249.stm Accessed: 10.2.2012

Hill, S. 2005. Iconic Autopsy: Postmortem Portraits of Bantu Steven Biko. African Arts. Autumn 2005. pp.14-25.

Hobbs, P. & Rankin, E. 2003. Rorke’s Drift: Empowering Prints. Cape Town: Double Storey Books.

Hunt, S. 2003. Turning the Tide of Violence in South Africa. In The International Development Research Centre. [O]. Available: http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-45629-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html Accessed: 5.11.2010.

Lockwood, S. 2007. Black Christ in the Fray. IOL News. [O]. Available: http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/black-christ-in-the-fray-1.317513 Accessed: 10.2.2012

Merrett, C. 1994. A Culture of Censorship: Secrecy and Intellectual Repression in South Africa.Cape Town, Pietermaritzburg and Macon: David Philip, University of Natal Press and Mercer University Press.

Michael Stevenson. 2009. Conrad Botes: Cain and Abel. [O]. Available: http://www.michaelstevenson.com/contemporary/exhibitions/botes/index2009.htm Accessed: 5.11.2010.

Mkize, V.  2011.  Shocking Female Murder Statistics.  IOL News. [O] Available: http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/shocking-female-murder-statistics-1.1150205 Accessed: 31 August 2013

Roberts, B. & Reddy, V. 2008. Pride and Prejudice: Public attitudes towards homosexuality. HSRC Review.Vol.6, no.4. November 2008. [O]. Available http://www.hsrc.ac.za/HSRC_Review_Article-121.phtml Accessed: 20.1.2010.

Rohrer, F.  2010. How Dangerous is South Africa?  BBC News Magazine. [O] Available:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8668615.stm Accessed: 31 August 2013

Victor, D. 2010. Interview between Diane Victor and Karen von Veh at University of Johannesburg,14 July 2010.

Williamson, S. 1989. Resistance Art in South Africa. New York: St. Martin’s Press.