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Abstract
This paper focuses on artistic engagements with urban change in Johannesburg. The guiding questions are: (1) How do artists perceive and reflect urbanity, social change, and the transition of inner-city Johannesburg within their work? (2) In what ways can artworks contribute to Southern theories and decolonial and pluriversal conceptions of the city? The paper consists of three parts. The first offers a conceptual framing of the relationship between images, imageries, and imagination and their relation to artistic representation and practice. The second part focuses on the work of David Koloane, Jo Ractliffe and Anthea Moys between the late 1990s and the early 2010s, whose artistic work relates in various ways to urban imaginaries, individual experience, and the visual representation of Johannesburg. Inspired by the concepts of cityness and invisibility (Simone), the third part of the paper discusses the interplay between individual positionality and urban experience, the role of socio-political discourses and urban imageries for the artistic expression as well as the potential of such analysis for theorizing urban life and its artistic representations from pluriversal perspectives, as suggested by proponents of decolonial theories.
Cet article se concentre sur les engagements artistiques avec le changement urbain à Johannesburg. Les questions directrices sont: (1) Comment les artistes perçoivent et reflètent le caractère citadin, le changement social et la transition du centre de Johannesburg dans leur travail? (2) En quoi les travaux artistiques peuvent-t-ils contribuer aux théories et aux conceptions décoloniales du Sud et pluriversales de cette ville? L’article consiste en trois parties. La première présente un cadrage conceptuel de la relation entre les images, les imageries et l’imagination et leur relation avec la représentation et la pratique artistique. La deuxième partie se concentre sur le travail de David Koloane, Jo Ractliffe et Anthea Moys entre la fin des années 1990s et le début des années 2010s, dont le travail artistique est lié de différentes façons aux imaginaires urbains, à l’expérience individuelle et à la représentation visuelle de Johannesburg. Inspiré par les concepts de citadineté et d’invisibilité (cityness), la troisième partie de l’article traite de l’interaction entre la positionnalité individuelle et l’expérience urbaine, le rôle du discours socio-politique et des imageries urbaines pour l’expression artistique ainsi que le potentiel d’une telle analyse pour théoriser la vie urbaine et ses représentations artistiques de perspectives pluriversales, comme le suggèrent les défenseurs des théories décoloniales.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Statement of ethics
The interviewer clearly communicated the scope and purpose of the research project to all interviewees. All interviewees gave consent to be interviewed for the purposes of this research. All interviewees also consented to interviews being used for publication purposes. The research was approved by the University of Basel. However, At the time this study was conducted, the university did not require ethical approval to be sought for this type of research.
Notes
1 I thank Anthea Moys and Jo Ractliffe for generously dedicating their time to inspiring and informative conversations and interviews during and after my doctoral research in Johannesburg. My gratitude and thoughts also go to David Koloane who loved to share his city observations with me and always made me feel welcome in his studio during my research stays. Sadly, he passed away on 30 June 2019.
2 Although I do not closely follow W. J. T. Mitchell’s argumentation, I adopt much of his terminology.
3 This dichotomy of black and white is also part of dominant discourses and imageries of Johannesburg. The history of early immigrants, such as the Indian and Chinese communities as well as migrants from neighbouring countries, as a substantial part in the making of South Africa tends to be erased in the dominant narrative.
4 Keith Beavon’s vital book carefully traces the urban developments and related discourses in the history of Johannesburg up to the early 2000s. It provides the background for the present argument but cannot be elaborated in detail here.
5 For an introduction to David Koloane’s work, see Atkinson (Citation2002).
6 See Mann (Citation2008) and Atkinson (Citation2002, 42–43).
7 By the end of the 1990s, it was replaced by Vodacom, one of the most powerful telecommunication providers in South Africa.
8 In the mid-2010s, she returned to Cape Town.
9 Interview F. S. with Anthea Moys, conducted on 27 January 2011 in Newtown, Johannesburg.
10 See Moys (Citation2009) and her webpage, http://www.antheamoys.com (retrieved 21 July 2015).
11 AbdouMaliq Simone is aware of different ways of ‘looking’ (Citation2010, 292–303). He hints towards this in his distinction between looking as a mode of representation and looking as a tool of verification and patterning. However, as in most literature about the gaze, it is attributed a dominant and centralised power position. Especially in view of Global South theories, and theories ‘from the South’, there is a sincere need for a revision of the theorisation of the gaze and the power of representation considering that a decolonial shift also implies a shift in the positionality of the gaze and its related subjectivity.