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inulroI was less excited about this exhibit but I thought I'd pop in and see it while I was in the area. I timed it well; I didn't get there till after 4 (though it's late opening day) and it was practicall empty.
It's a bit of a mess because it features art from the area that became South Africa from the very beginning to the present. I really enjoyed the early stuff, as I've been reading a bit about neolithic art and rock art generally lately.
The other interesting aspect was the contemporary art - three pieces in particular are jaw-dropping, stop you in your tracks stuff that were worth the price of admission alone.
Although the narrative of the exhibition was at great pains to explain that African art during the period of white settlement is difficult because what survives was collected as curios rather than art, but it still feels that it's being displayed as ethnotgraphic artifacts rather than as art. (Though that could be the result of 40-odd years of only seeing this kind of material displayed in that way). I did not know that African people continued to do rock art into the modern period, and the pieces where they painted the early Dutch ships and the white settlers were really cool.
I skipped pretty quickly over the parts explaining apartheid - I suppose it's aimed at people who are too young to have spent the 80s protesting against it and being taught about it in school.
I stil enjoyed it, but less than the Sunken Cities. Which probably says more about me and my interests than it does about the exhibtion itself.
It's a bit of a mess because it features art from the area that became South Africa from the very beginning to the present. I really enjoyed the early stuff, as I've been reading a bit about neolithic art and rock art generally lately.
The other interesting aspect was the contemporary art - three pieces in particular are jaw-dropping, stop you in your tracks stuff that were worth the price of admission alone.
Although the narrative of the exhibition was at great pains to explain that African art during the period of white settlement is difficult because what survives was collected as curios rather than art, but it still feels that it's being displayed as ethnotgraphic artifacts rather than as art. (Though that could be the result of 40-odd years of only seeing this kind of material displayed in that way). I did not know that African people continued to do rock art into the modern period, and the pieces where they painted the early Dutch ships and the white settlers were really cool.
I skipped pretty quickly over the parts explaining apartheid - I suppose it's aimed at people who are too young to have spent the 80s protesting against it and being taught about it in school.
I stil enjoyed it, but less than the Sunken Cities. Which probably says more about me and my interests than it does about the exhibtion itself.
