The princess in the veld : curating liminality in contemporary South African female art production

Abstract

I aim to showcase post-African female identity through the exhibition, The princess in the veld. The exhibition displays selected works produced by South African women artists, underpinned by the proposed curatorial framework. This curatorial approach is feminist, and may allow for a liminal reading of local female identity. I premise my theorised curatorial framework liminally, in-between binary oppositions. This position allows for a feminist position and/or reading of female identities that simultaneously allude to, and reject a so-called local (essentialised) women’s art production within the ambit of global, Western dominated feminism. I argue that, for such a display to be successful, an alternative curatorial space is needed. For this purpose, I introduce the notion of heterotopia, a counter-space, to renegotiate binaries and to render identity formations temporarily in-between prevailing norms. This heterotopic counter-curatorial space is realised through an exhibition that employs the medium of video, rather than conventional exhibition media installed in real space. An exploration of specified key local and international survey exhibitions foregrounding women’s concerns from the 1980s onwards, serves to inform my theorised curatorial framework. The research embarks on an investigation of a recent large-scale exhibition hosted in France, to gain an understanding of the pitfalls prevalent in curating an exhibition of artwork produced by women. From a feminist standpoint, I critically analyse this display to suggest more inclusive alternative curatorial strategies to shift the conventionally Western approach followed by this curator. The revisionist, feminist, re-reading of certain South African curated exhibitions from both the apartheid and post-apartheid periods proposes a feminist trajectory that follows the shaping of local women’s identities, which remain deeply inscribed in this country’s politics and histories. This section of the survey underlines local post- African female identity as liminal and in flux, through the investigation of seminal exhibitions and artworks produced by South African women. I argue that this liminal account allows for an inclusive and extended understanding of women, while explicating the South African multicultural dispensation wherein the post-African woman operates.