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Zamansele Nsele (photo: www.ru.ac.za)
A total of 75 works of art have been removed since the fall of Cecil John Rhodes's statue at the University of Cape Town, most of them after the Shackville protest by students in February during which paintings from a hostel were burnt.
The removals were done for a range of reasons, among which were concern for their safety, insurance, their isolation or the fact that they were close to other more controversial paintings, sites or plaques.
However, among these were ten works that were "prioritised" because students in discussions with university authorities since the launch of the #RhodesMustFall movement had identified them as works frequently mentioned among black students as causing offence when they encounter them on campus.
The 75 art works were identified by a special task team set up by the university council alongside other task teams (eg one on changing place names) to look into ways to advance decolonisation that would take into account the interests of all in the university community, also those of artists. Students are members of the committee.
The task team aims to submit a report by the middle of the year, and the works have been taken down on a strictly temporary basis until such time as a proper curatorial policy has been worked out for the whole university. However, it is also clear that much weight will be given to the opinions of students who take offence at certain works.
At this stage the ten works at issue remain unidentified. However, works of Breyten Breytenbach were removed because they were on loan from their owner and the university felt it had a "double curatorial responsibility" towards them.
In the case of some of the paintings the idea had initially been to return them to their places of display, but the university discovered it would incur extra costs that may turn out to be gratuitous should it be decided in the end that these paintings should be put up elsewhere or kept in storage for "non-political" reasons.
Here is the task team's motivation of its approach and actions.
Zamansele Nsele lectures in Art History and Visual Culture at Rhodes University, and is reading towards a PhD. She has presented academic papers at conferences and colloquiums in South Africa and in the UK. Her research interests range from popular culture to decolonial aesthetics, visuality and the aesthetics of blackface in art practice and performance. She talks to Hans Pienaar about the removal of art works at UCT.
The University of Cape Town has had 75 artworks removed from the walls of from some of its buildings. What was your immediate reaction to the news?
My immediate reaction was an optimistic one. In a university that is undergoing deep change, the removal of some visual material, including artworks, is essential if not inevitable. In fact, one has to wonder why this process was initiated by the concerted provocations of students. In my mind, a university that is committed to changing its visual identity demonstrates its commitment through proactive methods, not from pressure. The mere fact that it took the cries of students to initiate this process indicates that UCT has yet to make big strides in terms of creating an “inclusive” campus environment. On the other hand, one would guard against totalising this process into being just about visuality, “images” and the “look of things” that would be a form of window dressing. UCT will likely be successful in acquiring new artworks that are compatible with the decolonialising change that students are calling for. Acquiring new artworks and curating desirable images and objects is the easy part. The hard part is changing the inner workings of the actual institution, not just the look of the institution. An isolated focus on artworks, plaques and statues seems a bit reductive and potentially obfuscates more pressing issues.
Ten artworks were specifically taken down because students said they were causing offence to fellow students. Do you think it is a case of censorship?
Firstly, if we go by the standard definition of what censorship is, then it is indeed censorship, but it is contingent that we ask what types of messages and ideologies embedded in these objects are getting censored. Not all images are fit for public display and public consumption, we all know this. I suspect the reason why some students feel strongly that these artworks should be taken down instead of coexisting with perhaps a new collection, is precisely that to keep them hanging would signify an accommodation of harmful and outdated worldviews. To echo the artist Keresemose Richard Boholo’s views following the collateral destruction of his paintings in February this year, he affirms that art with colonial representations does not belong in a transformed institution because it creates a confusing and contradictory atmosphere that compromises the values that a university is striving for. I would suggest that the act of censorship be contextualised within this frame
Should the offence taken by students, especially those who identify themselves as black, be taken into account when selecting paintings to be displayed in public places on South Africa's campuses?
Of course. A diverse spectatorship should be taken seriously, not just the black spectatorship from the student body. What about the support staff, who on a daily basis have had to polish and shine the bronze plaques erected in honour of apartheid leaders?
The university's task team states: "The Task Team notes that a number of commentators critical of the campus display practice have pointed out that many of the artworks are displayed in settings in which colonial-era architecture has a predominant, even saturating, presence. This is one of the many environmental factors that affect how the works are apprehended by the public that views them on a daily basis." Would you agree?
Yes, I agree. Spaces orient our actions and set the tone for the ways in which we regard certain objects and their uses. But what is crucial is to not lose focus on the practices and habits that get performed and rewarded in these types of settings. Diversifying or removing certain artworks that occupy these spaces only attends to a fraction of the problem.
Some of the works were by Breyten Breytenbach. Were you surprised by this choice, given that he had served a jail sentence for his anti-apartheid activities, has a Vietnamese wife, and is well known for his anticolonial writings?
I believe the task team should scrutinise all the artworks with equal rigour and intensity, regardless of whether the artist concerned is or is not an anti-apartheid activist. An artist’s choice of spouse is irrelevant to whether their artwork is coherent within the vision of a transforming university.
South African art seems often to take its cues from movements and trends in art from overseas. Would this be a form of colonialism, or neocolonialism?
Well, it depends on where you locate “overseas”. If by overseas you mean Europe or America, well then, the project of modern art locates its origins as an expression of colonialism. African art/artifacts have been the creative bedrock from where the trajectory of modern art movements have sprung. Of course, African artists aspire to getting their big break in Europe and America, but in order to make a breakthrough they often have to produce a type of work that conforms to and fits into a paradigm that overall privilege a Western spectatorship.
Can strands of anticolonial art be identified in the history of South African art?
Firstly, one would have to historicise apartheid as a form of colonialism, because there was plenty of resistance art produced during that period. More importantly, it is essential to think about how we arrive at “anticolonial art” as a category in the history of South African art. I mean what criteria do we use to establish whether an artwork is anticolonial or not? Does it have to be produced during a certain time period, by a black artist? Does the work have to be underpinned by an anticolonial themes? If so, what visual narratives would constitute an anticolonial thematic structure?
Can artworks be decolonised? Or architecture, as at the University of Cape Town?
Yes, because you can only decolonise something that is colonised.