Picturing Change: Curating Visual Culture at Post-Apartheid Universities [Paperback]

Since South Africa’s transition to democracy, many of the country’s universities have acquired new works of art that convey messages about the advantages of cultural diversity, and engage critically with histories of racial intolerance and conflict. InPicturing Change, Brenda Schmahmann explores the implications of deploying the visual domain in the service of transformative agendas and unpacks the complexities, contradictions, and slippages involved in this process. She shows that although most new commissions have been innovative, some universities have acquired works with potentially traditionalist—even backward-looking—implications. While the motives behind removing inherited imagery may be underpinned by a desire to unsettle white privilege, in some cases such actions can also serve to maintain the status quo. This book is unique in exploring the transformative ethos evident in the curation of visual culture at South African universities and will be invaluable to readers interested in public art, the politics of curating and collecting, as well as to those involved in transforming tertiary and other public institutions into spaces that welcome diversity.

“It was an extremely clever decision to focus on universities to investigate visual culture as part of social and political change in South Africa. . . . In exploring decisions and controversies ranging across monuments, memorials, and independent artworks, as well as university crests and regalia, this study provides a fascinating microcosm of the production of visual culture in post-apartheid South Africa, engaging with thorny issues that provide insights for the wider practice and reception of art.” —Elizabeth Rankin, professor of art history, University of Auckland

Brenda Schmahmannis a professor in the facultylÃ*