How to be political? Art activism, queer practices and temporary autonomous zones

abstract

How to be political and do the “right” thing under “wrong” conditions? The following essay and the embedded conversation with Cornelia Schlothauer, a political artist in Germany, reflect on these questions. This text moves between theoretical analysis and practical examples of forms of resistance, opposition, and subversion of normative body politics through the arts. By critically discussing campaign politics in the context of emerging activism industries versus anti-state politics as practiced by autonomous women's movements, the text explores the liminal space between the commitment for change and simultaneous complicities with the status quo. Can the arts be a catalyst for disrupting hetero-normativity, in the form of South African visual activist Zanele Muholi's work, or of racist representations through direct action as described by Cornelia Schlothauer? To what extent are the commodification mechanisms of the international art circus compromising the political positioning of art activists whose “authentic” voices become an integral part of success? This dilemma is theoretically framed by drawing the philosophers Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt into the conversation, translating their reflections for today's complexities. Hakim Bey's (1991) anarchistic model of temporary autonomous zones is offered as an alternative for our understanding of disruption, intervention and empowerment.

keywords:

• South Africa
• Zanele Muholi
• German anti-racist movement
• hate crimes
• intersectionality

Acknowledgement

Thank you to Zanele Muholi and Sophy Rickett for permission to reproduce their art work in the article.

Notes

1. This text is a continuation of more theoretical explorations of and around Zanele Muholi's work in Schuhmann (2015) and ‘Shooting from the Other's Side? Ways of looking in Zanele Muholi's work’ to be published in 2015 with WITS University Press in a volume edited by Antje Schuhmann and Jyoti Mistry.

2. See http://www.corneliaschlothauer.de

3. See http://inkanyiso.org/. For further readings on Muholi's body of work see also: Baderoon (2011); Humbane (2014); Gqola (2006); Muholi (2011); G Smith (2004).

4. I use “we” deliberately, as I think no one can be exempted from being implicated fully by hegemonic discourses, at least in some ways.

5. I deliberately use “read” as it signifies a cultural practice, something we learn to do. As such it objects to the notion that bodies have an essence we can discover. It is conceptual language and includes again all people as it does not speak to a top down approach of discriminatory identification practices only. Women scrutinise women, black people ‘read’ other black people as ‘proper’ black or ‘coconut’, whites read each other as Afrikaans or English etc. It is an act which is crossing multiple positionalities.

6. See the work of Stuart Hall, Ann McClintock, Ann Laura Stoler, Louis Gordan, Jean-Paul Rocchi.

7. For studies about the ‘making of sex’ see Thomas Laqueur, Heinz Jürgen Voß, Judith Butler, Sandy Stone, Beatrice Preciado and many others.

8. Von Clausewitz was a general in the Prussian army who theorised general principles of warfare.

9. This statement refers to multiple conversations the author had with experts in the field, who are involved or have been invited and declined to be involved in these structures.

10. See for instance the above mentioned research report.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Antje Schuhmann

ANTJE SCHUHMANN holds a PhD in Postcolonial Studies (University of Munich, Germany) and is based in the Political Studies Department and the Centre for Diversity Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. The intersections of power with body politics and historic legacies within today's systems of violence and domination are one of the main foci of her intellectual and activist work. How do gender, race, sexuality, and class manifest in everyday experiences and politics of representation? How do the ways we memorise past violence subvert or reinforce contemporary forms of oppression? Her transdisciplinary scholarly background is in US-American interpretations of French poststructuralist theory production especially in relation to gender & queer studies, critical race theory and postcolonial studies. The application of psychoanalytic concepts in order to interpret socio-political and cultural phenomena, as developed by scholars of the German Frankfurt School/New School NY, influences her thinking. She is active in international feminist, anti-racist and anti-fascist networks and initiatives, has produced film and audio features, and is published widely internationally. Email: [email protected]