Twenty years ago the ANC was officially unbanned by South Africa’s apartheid government, removing one of the final political obstacles to a transition to a democratically elected government. At around the same time, in early 1991, Albie Sachs, the struggle veteran who would later serve in the Constitutional Court, and play an active role in establishing the Art Collection at Constitution Hill, published a position paper entitled ‘Preparing Ourselves for Freedom’.
The paper generated much debate, and put forward the view that South African art and literature had been homogenised and to some extent eviscerated by the perceived need to reflect the social ills of apartheid, and to establish political opposition to it. Sachs’ liberal viewpoint was that art and literature should embody diversity in subject matter and technique, and should not be constrained by a reflectionist agenda.
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Zanele Muholi, Being (right triptych), 2007,
silver gelatin prints and a Lambda print, 30 x 22.5cm each |
Two decades on, and the most recent burning debate in arts and culture circles in the country concerns the rejection of the work of award-winning photographer Zanele Muholi – specifically her socialrealist fine art portraits of black lesbian couples – by the presiding minister of arts and culture Lulama Xingwana. Ironically, the minister’s walkout from an exhibition she deemed “pornographic” was staged at Constitution Hill, built to embody the new South Africa’s right to freedoms of expression, association, creed and sexual orientation.
