African modernism and identity politics : curatorial practice in the Global South with particular reference to South Africa

Abstract

This study, entitled African modernism and identity politics: curatorial practice in the Global South with particular reference to South Africa, postulates that perceptions of African identity in curatorial exhibitions are changing, moving towards the intercultural views generated by Africans themselves. African identity politics is investigated in relation to critical ideas on African modernism and post-Africanism, in conjunction with similarities with Nicholas Bourriaud’s concept of altermodernism. The research focus falls within the Global South as a geo-political location, with particular reference to South African artworks and their curation. In this qualitative study, an investigation is launched of curated exhibitions dealing with identitarian issues. A critique is set up on curatorial approaches on African identity as presented at seminal exhibitions, from the 1985 exhibition, Tributaries: a view of contemporary South African art (curated by Ricky Burnett), through the 1990s Johannesburg Biennials, to more recent exhibitions such as Documenta XI (2002, curated by Okwui Enwezor) and Africa remix: contemporary art of a continent (2004-2007, curated by Simon Njami), as well as the Tate Liverpool exhibition Afro modern: journeys through the black Atlantic (2010, curated by Tanya Barson and Peter Gorschlüter). Along with a critique of curatorial intentions, these exhibitions are reviewed in order to explore the representation of African modern identity. This study considers how, after postcolonialism and postmodernism, binary differences such as Western/African and black/white have become less pronounced, due to globalising processes, resulting in interculturalism and transnationalism. This study captures the shift away from the centrality thinking of postmodernism and postcolonialism, not in terms of white superiority, but in terms of a reconstruction of the modern, in order to situate Africa as a product of globalisation. The study hypothesises that transmutation has occurred, rendering society as culturally intermixed, and thus dismantling essential racial stereotypes. The study rather investigates identity exchange in terms of translation, where the understanding of difference is considered in terms of changing understandings of difference itself through globalisation. In order to surpass stereo-racial boundaries, this study postulates that identitarian understanding is now transconscious, pluralised to the point of being racially exchanged. The exhibition Trans-Africa: Africa curating Africa challenges and transmutes stereotypes of backwardness, exoticism and dislocation in perceptions of Africa within the curatorial realm, and aims to elicit new frameworks to interpret African art. The curatorial objective is to posit a contemporary understanding of African identity within the public domain: in a space where terms like race, culture, tradition or self/other need not form the basis of identitarian understanding in Africa. The outcome of such an understanding is explained through the concept of the transmutation of culture, that problematises differences in cultural translation and trans-consciousness. This results in a transnational and global understanding, no longer limited to the understanding of African identity with regard to diasporic or nomadic conditions. As such, cultural intermixing and trans-consciousness conveys that within changing curatorial perceptions, the issue of who has the right to comment on whom is fading.