Download this publication - PULP - University of Pretoria

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The politics of horror art, freedom of expression and the University as open space A response to Professors Heyns and van Marle (PULP Fictions: Disasters of peace: An exchange, 2005) 6 years later Joel S.M. Modiri* Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria Deceptively straightforward, the contemporary visual terrain in westernised, post-industrial cultures is increasingly developing into a complex smorgasbord of visual spectacles available to potential viewers. Discourse dealing with issues arising from this field of the visual, or ‘visual culture’, is evidence of an intellectual acknowledgment that present-day (post-industrial) social, political and cultural life is undeniably entangled with (and complicated by) images ... Recent enquiry into the ideological underpinnings of images in general, as well as the assumption that vision is a learnt activity, has led to new questions being asked in (and of) art history. 1 1 Introduction It comes as no surprise that the pictures reproduced at the beginning of this publication caused a stir in the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Law five years ago. 2 The decision to display the etchings of artist Diane Victor in the * My sincere thanks to Prof Karin van Marle for her comments and input and to Prof Duard Kleyn and Prof Christof Heyns for discussions and feedback. 1 J Lauwrens ‘Sightseeing in art and visual culture’ (2008) 14 Image & Text 18. 2 ‘Made to measure’ (top) and ‘In sheep’s clothing’ (bottom). 5
6 Centre for Human Rights and the subsequent decision to remove them from the Centre and then from the corridors of the Department of Public Law sparked debate and reflection on the value of art, on freedom of expression and on the crafting of a politics within the Faculty that embraces dissent. In response to this issue, Professors Christof Heyns and Karin van Marle 3 each delivered conceptions of the kind of commitment to and understanding of human rights, democratic ethics and tolerance that should inform our outlook on art and specifically horror art, which often has the effect of jolting us out of the false sense of comfort that we have been lulled into and present to us in graphic detail the horrors of life, the realities of injustice, violence and abuse and essentially, the ‘Disasters of Peace’. 4 In what follows I attempt to show how, even six years on, the artworks are still relevant. The conditions that reproduce sexual violence, hatred, patriarchy, neo-oppression, social anarchy and human misery are alive and well. Diane Victor’s etchings confirm that among us prowl the products of our immoral and amoral past — killers who have no sense of the worth of human life, rapists who have absolute disdain for the women of our country, animals who would seek to benefit from the vulnerability of the children, the disabled and the old, the rapacious who brook no obstacle in the quest for self-enrichment. 5 This proves, to revise an old adage that pictures speak louder than words. Heyns and Van Marle went further than only the art works themselves, to deal with the process of consultation that was (not) followed in the decision to display the pictures in the Faculty building (whether in the Centre for Human Rights, the corridors or offices in the Department of Public Law or anywhere else for that matter). Heyns stresses that ‘a commitment to democracy and human rights requires that those directly affected should in one way or another be consulted when strong statements are made through 3 4 5 C Heyns ‘In graphic detail. Freedom of expression on campus’ and K van Marle ‘Art, democracy and resistance: A response to Professor Heyns’ Disasters of Peace: an exchange (2005) 1 Pulp Fictions 3 and 15 respectively. This is the official name for a series of artworks by Diane Victor. Thabo Mbeki ‘I am an African’ (1996) Statement of (then) Deputy President TM Mbeki, on behalf of the ANC, on the occasion of the adoption by the Constitutional Assembly of the Republic of South Africa Constitution Bill, 1996, 8 May 1996. Available at http://www.info.gov.za/aboutgovt/orders/ news20220_mbeki.htm.
Page 1 and 2: DISASTERS OF PEACE: PART 2 2011
Page 3 and 4: ‘Made to measure’ by Diane Vict
Page 8 and 9: art on their behalf’ 6 while Van
Page 10 and 11: 2.2 How do we categorise art? The d
Page 12 and 13: this kind of innocence, of superfic
Page 14 and 15: we want to advocate in the Law Facu
Page 16 and 17: Following my support for Van Marle
Page 18 and 19: (iii) Thirdly, the University — w
Page 20 and 21: Returning to my earlier point about
Page 22: ... Open and transparent — ironic
Page 25 and 26: 24 Shying away from the images is s
Page 27 and 28: 26 inclined to. 6 Simply put, sex s
Page 29 and 30: 28 exhibit the violent nature of su
Page 31 and 32: 30 I have already pointed out the a
Page 33 and 34: 32 The Damaso artwork demonstrates
Page 35 and 36: 34 basis’. 27 Public response tha
Page 38 and 39: Untitled Christof Heyns Faculty of
Page 40 and 41: At the main exhibition hall a publi

Download this publication - PULP - University of Pretoria

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?