Fouad Asfour, one of the contributing editors to Documenta magazine, and Sharlene Khan, a local artist about whose work I expressed my reservations very briefly in my last post, have launched accusations that I am racist for having ciriticised Khan’s work and that I am ignorantly “lauding” my own “white saviour” humanitarian efforts, using the suffering of those who have been displaced or hurt in the recent xenophobic attacks as an excuse to promote myself.
I find Asfour’s critisism to be particularly unfair, as he presupposes that I “randomly” chose to attack Khan, that I am ignorant of the nature of her work, and that my criticism of Urban Concerns for its relative disengagement from recent events in the city was unresearched and unfounded. I would like to respond to some of Asfour’s accusations here (please refer to the coments section of the post titled It’s time to volunteer to see Asfour’s criticism.)
Firstly, I take exception to being accused of trying opportunistically to “laud” my own humanitarian efforts. If Asfour (and Khan) had read my post with less pre-emptive bias, he would see that I was merely expressing a frustration at institutional inertia in responding to the immediate demands of the refugee relief efforts around Johannesburg. I acknowledged the work of other volunteers directly, and kept my accounts of my personal activities to a minimum, apart from indicating where I went, what I saw and what a fellow volunteer might expect to do when he or she arrives at a relief centre, based on my own experience (how else am I supposed to provide such information?).
The objective of my post was to contrast the relative disengagement of relevant institutional programs (in the field in which I practice) from this humanitarian crisis, with the volunteer presence I have witnessed at a particular relief centre. I still maintain that my critique of Urban Concerns is justified. Anyone can set up a blog, as Urban Concerns has, and post three entries about xenophobia. This has not met my expectations of Urban Concerns, based on the sort of presence some of its representatives have, at the outset of the endeavour, projected it would have in the public realm. I find the straw-man attack of a minor point in my argument, frankly, narcissistic and flimsy.
Next, I am well aware of the nature and thematic preoccupations of Sharlene Khan’s work. Asfour has no basis on which to accuse me of ignorance here. Just because she is interested in the urban presence of migrant workers in South African cities, and Johannesburg particularly, doesn’t mean that I have to agree with how she chooses to explore these concerns artistically.
Asfour seems to think that I have launched a lengthly attack against Sharlene on racist (or some other) grounds, when I have merely passed a comment hinting that I found her Urban Concerns project at Bildmuseet in Sweden dubious. I am just as entitled to this opinion as she is to work in the medium of painting or drawing and make portraits of Johannesburg’s (or South Africa’s, or Africa’s) disenfranchised. My reference to Khan was not at all random. I referred to her installation for Urban Concerns at Bildmuseet in Umea, Sweden, January 2008, because, as both Khan and Asfour have pointed out, Khan’s work is explicitly concerned with the lived experience of the city’s permanent and migrant inhabitants and constituted a major intervention on behalf of Urban Concerns SA overseas. Still, this does not mean I have to think her technical and conceptual execution of her thematic concerns is effective. Since when has an artist’s good intention exonerated her from criticism? Moreover, my criticism was primarily leveled at Urban Concerns (and Khan insofar as she represented the South African leg of the project in Sweden) and certainly not at Khan personally, and not even necessarily as an artist in her own capacity.
As for Urban Concerns, Asfour’s comment has not addressed my initial argument that Urban Concerns — which did, in its initial stages, purport to engage actively with the concerns of, and issues affecting, people living in Johannesburg (there was lofty talk of resurrecting art activism at the JAG launch) — has remained relatively disengaged (bar the banner-making session for the protest march) from recent horrific events in the city, such as Nwabisa Ngcukana’s molestation at Noord Street and now, the xenophobic attacks.
Why criticise Urban Concerns at all at a time like this? Well, I am interested in how Johannesburg’s art institutions, programs and exhibitions interface with broader events in the city and the opinions and concerns of the public, and I see this blog as a space where some of these connections can be explored. I have often adopted such a perspective in my posts, and I feel that offering a critical — even a polemical — position in the context of an open online forum is worthwhile. It encourages debate, evidently.
Urban Concerns, if you read their blog (which I do), purports to “[present] the Johannesburg Art Gallery with an important opportunity for addressing many of the institutional and programmatic demands in the area. Whilst the primary aim of the research project [Urban Concerns] would be to integrate the institution with its surrounds, the challenge is developing a meaningful program of events, which would attract the diversity of residents who live in the area to the gallery and the park.” It is in view of these claims that I criticise Urban Concerns specifically.
In my previous post I expressed my reservation that Urban Concerns has failed to generate a “meaningful program of events” in response to the xenophobic violence and before this, in response to Nwabisa Ngcukana’s molestation at Noord Street taxi rank. These are the two incidents that I mentioned, because I felt that they warranted a strong public and institutional response, but there are countless other worrying events I might have listed. I don’t think that the three posts specifically addressing xenophobia on the Urban Concerns blog adequately move towards “integrat[ing[ the institution [JAG] with its surrounds” or constitute “developing a meaningful program of events”.
I didn’t “pick on” the Trinity Session or the Joubert Park Project (JPP), as Asfour suggests I should have, because their agendas are different from that of Urban Concerns. At the risk of repeating myself, Urban Concerns seeks to create a dialogue and to generate “meaningful events” in response to immediate public concerns in an urban context.
The Trinity Session is concerned not only with the place of art in an urban context (this is more in accordance with Stephen Hobbs’ personal artistic interests) but also with the sustainability of art industries in a developing nation. As for the JPP, its goals are similarly long-term, and while it does propose to facilitate art events that speak to circumstances in its immediate urban environment, for the moment, this aim is being met. The German artist Hans Winkler is presently conducting a “Walking Newspaper” project from the Drill Hall, which involves a number of local artists contributing works that reflect on their direct engagement with the immediate dynamics of the city space. This newspaper project will, no doubt, address the matter of xenophobia and the related threat of violence in the inner city, in some way. The newspaper will be printed in approximately two weeks.
Asfour also accuses me of being ignorant of the situation in the city of Johannesburg, as if there were only one situation, a grand narrative of municipal politics. A proposed pre-2010 “clean-up” campaign is only one perspective in a complex, ongoing debate. Asfour’s representation of it, although somewhat unclear, seems to be as reductive and unconsidered as his objection to my post is.
As for my knowledge of “South African artists” and “South African art discourse”, which Asfour also feels in a position to attack (is it a competition? Shall we play art scene Trivial Pursuit?), I feel that it is adequate, in this context, for me to offer a critical perspective. It is a stale and manipulative maneuver to accuse a writer of ignorance when one doesn’t agree with her criticism. Is there only one “South African art discourse”? Is it the one Asfour see fit to validate? The beauty of the blog platform — where it differs from print — is that it does not circumscribe discourse absolutely. The fact that Asfour and others have composed and posted reactions to my post attests to this. And, by the way, this piece was not published in the Mail & Guardian: it reflects my views, not the paper’s.
To get to the rub, Asfour closes his comment by calling my post “one of the worst manifestations of subtle racism I have found in recent art writing of South Africa.” Similarly, Sharlene Khan suggests that I am “a saviour white person who has finally found a cause to support.” She calls me “rude, racist and condescending” and asks “how long it will take for [my] White saviour conscience to next be pricked — probably when racist or gender violence breaks out on a national scale in this country”. The accusation that I am racist, subtly or otherwise, is completely unjustified. I happen not to like Sharlene Khan’s work; I happen to be white; she happens to be Indian. No inference of racism whatsoever can justifiably be drawn from this correlation. If one thinks it can, this has grim implications for the future of all forms of cultural criticism in South Africa.
Asfour notes that “Sharlene Khan is one of the first and foremost outspoken critics of racially biased politics in South African art scene.” Maybe this is where the problem lies — I have dared to criticise the critic of art scene politics. It would appear my whiteness has nullified the content of my criticism and has translated it into an expression of racial discrimination.
Truthfully, race does not factor, as a bargaining tool, as a handicap or as a disqualifier, in my criticism of South African art. I have criticised many white artists before. I am deeply disappointed particularly at Asfour’s attempt to silence criticism with the threat of political stigma. To be called a racist in a South African public forum is damning; his move was strategically retributive, and, I think, gives evidence of the influence interpersonal politics has on public cultural discourse at an international level.
It is precisely this sort of unjustified recourse to the inevitable racial sensitivity of South Africa’s reading public that will limit discourse around the arts (and other spheres) in South Africa. I am quite horrified that Asfour and Khan would accuse me, or any other critic, of bigotry simply because I have criticised an artist whose demographic does not coincide entirely with my own. These misguided accusations of my being racist are themselves, at face value, quite racist.
One final point. I feel that my criticism of Khan and Urban Concerns in my previous post has been blown out of proportion and misappropriated to suggest that I had made a meal of ridiculing both. Both Khan and Asfour seem to have missed the tone and intention of my post, and are riding what has now become a personal vendetta. Artists will inevitably be criticised, as will writers and any other cultural practitioners. It’s all in a day’s work. Still, I am glad for their detailed responses to my post, because they have foregrounded a problematic set of raced assumptions which I hope are not endemic — if they are, this has the potential to censor cultural discourse in South Africa to an alarming degree.
Shame on you Sharlene and Asfour, your unwarranted tirades indicate an intellectual immaturity that is astounding and provocative in the extreme. Furthermore your self absorption, clearly evident from your replies to the previous blog, indicates an emotional immaturity which is completely at odds with the type of persons we would like to see as role models in our society.
Slanging match anyone?
If you really want to piss off Ms Khan, point out to her that her work is Eurocentric media based and merely portrays Black People as subjects, (with an interestingly bland use of Black Skin tones) with westernised clothes in the inner city as examples of loss of identity.
But it fails to provide anything other than a series of “tourist snapshots of interesting natives” without even managing a historical transformation as Henri Toulouse Lautrec did with his portrayal of Whores and Paris dancing urbanites in experimental form that transformed into Impressionist and Expressionist and Graphic art development and the raising of industrialised city scapes into a valid subject matter before Lowry did the ame.
Nor does it even try to recover Black cultural history from the museum display case and transform oppression into the vivacity of carnival or roots.
So she might make a living as a competent portrait painter as long as you dont mind her use of tones for black Skin with its frightening echoes of Lucean Freud and white skin, but if she’s SA’s cutting edge in art then we are in for a long winter of complacency.
You have touched on the biggest problem that South Africa is facing today. Any criticism of anyone is immediately deemed racist, no matter what the context. If everyone would get off this high horse we would be in with a chance of making SA what we all know she could be.
I fail to see the alledged racism in your previous post. What I do see are two people who are not white attacking a white journalist for daring to criticise something they are/were involved in. You didn’t mention race at all. Sharlene referred to race four times in her comment. It’s so easy to play the race card when criticised.
When people with chips on their shoulders read your post, of course they’ll see it as a racist attack and an attempt to blow your own trumpet regards the volunteer work that you’ve been doing. Your post was very informative and contained relevant information on actions you can take to help the people affected by the wave of xenophobia that swept through Joburg and Cape Town. Thanks for all the info, I hope to put it into good effect.
Does it really matter what these folks think of you?
You said……Sharlene is an indifferent artist
You did NOT say……Sharlene is an indifferent BLACK artist
I find any claim to special status based on race deserving of nothing but contempt.
In an effort to be fair I have googled the artist and her work does nothing for me, but then neither did Tretchikoff’s and he was white. This would suggest an issue of taste rather than any racist inclinations
Yes, and Urban Concerns also didnt tackle the problem of soccer mums in huge 4x4s polluting the streets, over-crowding a the local shebeen after 11pm, the Reitz hostel saga, the high price of bread and the polarisation caused by MP3 players versus the iPod amongst urban youth listening to hip-hop in taxis. So what! You DO waffle on about nothing.
Phew. I’ve caught up with your previous post (It’s time to volunteer) and have just read this one. Sies.
I don’t know that your previous post is motivated by racism (only you in a quiet honest moment can answer that). But here’s what I do know:
- Your attack on Sharlene was not slight: “Maybe Sharlene Khan will daub some portraits of suffering refugees and take them to Sweden?” Aside from being acerbically bitchy, it portrays a myopic picture of an artist who exploits the oppression of others in a bid to get recognition abroad. Nothing can be further from the truth about Sharlene – or have you chosen to ignore the accounts from others who commented on your post yesterday? In the context of what she does to help people other than herself, your “criticism” is both inaccurate and discriminatory. Sies.
- If you want to critique fine art institutions, that’s fine – there’s lots to critique there. But you’ve levelled an erroneous personal strike against someone under the guise of critiquing institutions. That’s just dishonest.
- Mostly what is repulsive about your “critique” is that it is inserted into a post that has nothing to do (directly) with the social role of art/culture. It is a post that supposedly calls people to action (a good thing) in the wake of the xenophobic attacks. But then you use this as leverage to launch your personal attack and to elevate yourself at the same time (an opportunistic thing). I can unfortunately only see this as sneakily setting yourself up as belonging to a camp of “do-gooders”, while another camp of “no-good-doers” consists of people like Sharlene.
This is disingenuous arguing and smacks of an individual competitiveness that is deplorable in the current context. No degree of false “entitlement” to your views will somehow make it okay to use this space to slag off good human beings or to divert our focus from the real struggles.
The xenophobic attacks have sparked wide-ranging condemnation (and action) – which is good. For some this is an opportunity to do something to help the “disenfranchised” as you call “them”. For most people, struggle in this country is daily life and it has never stopped; it just intensifies, slackens, ebbs and flows…always continuing. Similarly “volunteerism” happened before your post came along and carries on beyond times of national crises. Ask Sharlene.
The real challenge is not to compare notes about how much good you can do in a time of acute violence, but how much you continue to do when you’re back in the realm of comfort.
Can you inspire us to action beyond being just an acerbic critic? Can you use your “superpowers” constructively to provide platforms to those who are trying to bring about real change here; instead of abusing this platform to construct a super-hero narrative of yourself?
Good on you, Anthea!
I have read the previous comments on your post on volunteering and I think that Sharlene Khan has really taken offence where none was meant. To be honest, I am sick and tired of the view of white citizens of this country being discounted if any whim of critism is detected. You did NOT in any way imply that race was involved. You could have called her the indian K word, but you did not! Alas, SHE used the universal F word which tells me she has lost her temper and wrote out of anger of some sorts. Not a good thing to do!
@ Anthea
You are a good soul, and it is probably this that has saved you thus far from the tag ‘racist’.
Others whose political views are far less liberal than yours have long become immune to the moniker. It used to bother me, but usually the name callers are the ones who actually have the issues. You know yourself if you are or are not a racist, if you are not and others claim that you are, then the problem is with them. Actually there are far worse things to be in any case. Better a racist, but in the trenches and helping the oppressed, than a ‘liberation hero’ but in Japan, or maybe awaiting trial for corruption.
Only if you allow someones elses’ worthless cheap-shot of an opinion to bother you does it really matter. South Africa is full of anti-racism campaigners turned racists. They have their own party, the ANC.
@Anthea
Don’t worry about it. A RACIST is anyone who is winning an argument with a Liberal!
At the present time it has been made into an emotional word with little or no meaning. It has been designed to make people have a “Feel Bad” factor about something or someone without really knowing why. So far it has worked very well. Looki it got you upset.
This is because Political Correctness has been used to place anyone who questions something about non-whites under suspicion of being guilty of “RACISM”.
Compared to other kinds of offenses, it is thought to be somehow more reprehensible. All races have been declared to be equally talented and hard- working, and anyone who questions the dogma is thought to be not merely wrong but RACIST.
All public discourse on race today is locked into this rigid logic. Any explanation for failure when the person is not white must be RACIST. If no obviously racist individuals can be identified, then societal institutions must be racist.
Whites need only express their opposition to affirmative action to be called racist. They need only complain about racial policies that are clearly prejudicial to themselves to be called racists.
Should they actually go so far as to say that they prefer the company of their own kind, that they wish to be left alone to enjoy the fruits of their European heritage, they are irredeemably racist.
All non-whites are allowed to prefer the company of their own kind, to think of themselves as groups with interests distinct from those of the whole, and to work openly for group advantage. None of this is thought to be racist.
At the same time, whites must also champion the racial interests of non-whites.
They must sacrifice their own future on the altar of “diversity” and cooperate in their own dispossession. They are to encourage, even to subsidize, the displacement whites. White people are cheerfully to slaughter to commit racial and cultural suicide. To refuse to do so is RACISM.
In this day and age our arguments should be superior than attacking race. I think its dull and naive that when a criticism is levelled at you then you resort to race. Surely in a democracy you solely interrogate and attack an opinion not someone’s skin complexion. Shame, our democracy deserves better intellectuals than this.
Karima has made some good points – Anthea – how about a reply?
Karima, I don’t see anything Anthea says as setting herself up as a do-gooder, and nor is her opinion of Khan as a no-do-gooder. She is quite correct in her assessment of the tardiness of institutional responses to the attacks. I only see her as making a heartfelt plea for people to volunteer in a meaningful and pragmatic way to help others. Sometimes it takes involvement at a time of crisis to start someone on an ongoing volunteer basis; as then one comes into contact for the first time with those who are less fortunate than ourselves. One small comment, almost as an aside, does not constitute a gratuitous attack on Sharlene Khan. It merely vents her frustation at the lack of immediate action from the institute in question. I am not familiar with the art of Khan nor with Urban Concepts as an institution, and quite frankly couldn’t care less about them, nor their lack of impact on the plight of the urban poor.As for Anthea Buys? First time I’ve heard of her too. She has a problem with them, she’s entitled to her opinion You are the one who is really coming across as a touch “holier than thou.”
If you are white and openly criticise anything in SA, you run the risk of being called a racist. Can’t see why you spend almost 2000 words defending yourself. Just live with it.
@ Karima
I am reluctant even to bother replying to your post, as it will make no difference to how you read, or mis-read, either of my posts.
How many times do I have to say that I made no claims about Sharlene personally. I have no reason to. My comment was in the context of my criticism of Urban Concerns. Are you aware of her project under the banner of Urban Concerns at Sweden in January 2008?
Also, my previous post was precisely addressing the social role of art. I don’t have to preface this argument with an account of the history of this debate. Perhaps you forget that this is a blog, and I am entitled – yes, entitled – to express an opinion, which, for the record, does not amount to hate speech, one-upmanship or self-promotion. I don’t care who volunteered where before this upsurge of xenophobic violence broke out. You don’t know whether I am a regular “volunteer” or not. It is simply not relevant to my discussion, and your appealing to it has persuasive currency at an emotional level, but is not really substantive otherwise.
Sies sies sies
Anthea both your posts hardly leave me with the impression that there is nuanced substance to your critique.
I would agree that there is more than just two posts and a some back-and-forth comments can capture.
Still, I expect that I am not alone in wondering why you seem so compelled to be “punching” and pointing fingers here.
I do not know Khan, but just from reading here it is quite apparent that your assessment of her work includes a dismissal of her person too.
At the very least you should recognize that your critique imply that Khan’s work and deeds are not good enough to adequately portray, or capture, the suffering of her Black subjects.
This is a racialized argument whether you see it or not.
Furthermore, it hardly helps your case that your reply-argument situates you as a victim of reverse racism.
All of this comes across quite unethical and very misplaced at this time of national tragedy.
It should be different, and you should be above this kind of heavy handed nonsense.
I must congratulate you on your coolheaded retort to blissfully ignorant racist attacks. It appears that the general consensus is that White people have a monopoly when it comes to racism. Whenever a White person criticises a person of colour, it is always at the risk of being dealt the race card. The race card is a get out of jail free card. Once it is played, all further protest is futile.
I have formal art training. I do not share your diplomatic notions of Sharlene Khan’s work. You suggest that it merely fails to live up to your expectations of works with such high profile. On the contrary, my opinion is that Khan’s work fails to testify of any technical art training beyond the formative years. There is no perspective in the works I have seen. There are amateurish means of depicting 3D objects on a 2D plane. Symbolism, the ultimate refuge to those who fail to master technique, also eludes her. Her works are dismally literal, depicting African people’s agony by depicting African people with expressions of agony and with more agonising anatomy. Indeed, Khan’s treatment of human anatomy borders on human rights violations in and of themselves.
Her politics might be catering to the peanut gallery of popular opinion, and for all its exuberance is nothing more than echoes of notions already cemented in the public mind (standing on the shoulders of giants, as it were). These notions, that White people are cruel, colonialist slave masters responsible for the misery of all other races and that all people of colour are merely considered the ‘White man’s burden’, are contrasted with the ‘Afrikan’ mentality that there exists a brotherhood of man in Africa form which the White man is somehow excluded by virtue of his European origins.
This despite the fact that ‘Eurocentric’ society is the first to abolish slavery, and that slavery was encouraged and exploited by Africans who also envisioned Ubuntu. This despite the fact that Europeans also trace their ancestry ultimately back to mother Africa. This despite the fact that democracy is also the White man’s burden (or is that Caramel man’s burden? Either way, it is a notion of those who would pass pencil test criteria with relative ease) and that this democracy derives its strength precisely from the fact that its participants are free to offer each other critique.
This freedom of expression allows for different individual perspectives – not Black, Afrikan, or Eurocentric perspectives, but personal perspectives.
The power of personal perspectives is that you could say Khan’s work is lacklustre, while you consider her motives noble. To any objective person, it remains one personal opinion vexed against another until one party starts with an intellectually dishonest tactic of not only questioning motives, but assigning motives with a lethal race card.
In my opinion, Khan should have swallowed some of her Urban Concerns’ medicine before embarking on such a knee-jerk reaction to what remains a personal opinion of her artistic skill (or lack thereof) and the achievements (or lack thereof) of Urban Concerns. What is this medicine?
Don’t give hate a chance. Africans, whether we are Black, White, Afrikan, Indian, Gay, Straight (another blight some of us have to face) or Other, are all equally significant and equally valid parts of the African brotherhood. This might not be the reality that sits well with Khan or her Afrikans, but it is the reality they have to come to terms with. Similarly, she has to come to terms with a critic who may be right, (and if not right, still worth due consideration afforded to other Africans) despite the genetic impairment of being White.
Art? Schmart. Racism? Schmacism.
Why don’t we test real racism. Not perceptions, not what you feel and voice, but in what you do. Why do I only see some people giving money, blankets and food to the displaced people, and why do I see a certain part of the population looking down on people hungrily sleeping on the wet and cold mud, and nonchalantly say,” this is good enough, what do they need more?”. My point? Lets identify the real racists among us and lets deal with them according to international standards, and lets not waste time with peoples perceptions, which is only that, a perception, but lets tackle real racism, where it touches the skin on your back, your livelyhood, your income, your employment, your daily life, your children and your future.
I think this piece was justified in reaction to the earlier posts. @ Kirstie has hit the nail on the head. All people in SA need to be less touchy – especially the blacks who seem to have a huge chip on the shoulder. You come across as a people with a really low self-esteem. Why? You have endured so much and broken down so many barriers. Your reactions are starting to prove that “Proud to be black” is just marketing dribble. Please get over it.
@ Karima……you say
“This is disingenuous arguing and smacks of an individual competitiveness that is deplorable in the current context”
Maybe you are right but allow me to go off at a bit of a tangent
You might find some competiveness distasteful but regardless of context it is the engine that drives human endeavour. The only way for individuals, groups, countries, etc to advance is through the medium of competition.
There is no denying that competition sometimes gets nasty but the degree of nastiness is frequently an indication of the disgruntlement of those who come second. By the way, those who come second are not necessarily losers.
I would argue that the recent violence has its roots in competition and the fact that some of the “players” are not even prepared to join the game.
Maybe I am seeing a subtle thread that does not exist, but I am concerned that South Africa will look back and say that our best interests were not well served by those who seek to eliminate competition for whatever reason.
I’m no expert, but like Anton I went and had a look at her art (through Google). I have to say, I like her pictures. I studied art and managed to get an A level, but I was never as good as Sharlene. I am more graphically inclined and that is why I like what I saw.
However, I must agree that the pictures I saw do not reflect much of what is presently happening in South Africa. There is no political element or anything that grabs me emotionally. Nice pictures is all I see. Well done Sharlene!
Fouad Asfour and Sharlene Khan? I like these guys. Must find out more about them.
It’s a pity when someone volunteers for humanitarian work, and then gets criticised for ‘lauding their white saviour’ efforts. Anthea is at least doing something… how many of us have done nothing??
In some way everyone who volunteers is doing it fill a spot in their ego. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, myself included, everyone who has written a comment to this article is also fulfilling a spot in their ego.
The main players in this argument are all trying to raise their public profile in some way, but to degenerate into a name-calling mud-slinging playground scrap is really not the way to gain mutual respect – it only serves to further alienate the groups.
Anthea, I think you hit the nail on the head by labeling the reaction as narcissistic.
This is ridiculous – there was nothing racist at all about Ms Buys’ original blog – for sure, it named Ms Khan directly, and that may have been somewhat callous – but there was no racial inflection whatsoever. This is abundantly clear to anyone who reads the piece and is not already ‘looking for a fight’.
Ms Khan’s response – to play the race card – is disingenuous, and quite simply offensive…By doing this, in an instance where racism is SO CLEARLY NOT the issue, she cheapens every REAL incident of racism that happens, or will happen in the future.
This is weak stuff. And altogether disappointing.
I would love Ms Khan to write a follow-up post…
“My most recent work, which was started in October last year and that I am still working with, are drawings of immigrants and African refugees at robots, which include interviews that I did with the people who agreed to be photographed by me. They are people I drive by every couple days, people who don’t bother to even sell me things because they are busy asking me about how I am, how my work is going.” Sharlene Khan
Karima says “Ask Sharlene”
Okay Sharlene have you ever heard the song by Tina Turner: WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER HERO?
You might be interested in the following declaration, issued by ICOM-SA last week, regarding the responsibilities of the heritage and museum asector in civil society.
ICOM-SA declaration regarding the xenophobic, ethnic and criminal violence in South Africa
The Executive Board of the South African National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-SA)
embracing the values of the ICOM Strategic Plan: Our Global Vision 2008 – 2010:
• national and global dialogue based on intellectual, cultural and social diversity
• transparent dialogue including the cross-cultural understanding of human rights
• museums’ social responsibility to engage with public issues of social change
affirming the aim of the ICOM-SA Strategic Plan: Our Local Vision 2008 – 2010:
• museums can and must play an important role in our changing society, particularly in the national and global cultural cross-fertilisation of urban and rural environments.
affirming the RESOLUTIONS AS AMENDED & VOTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY of ICOM at the 22nd General Assembly of ICOM, Vienna, August 2007:
• Protection and Promotion of Universal Heritage with Respect for Cultural and Natural Diversity
• the participation in programmes that demonstrate the contemporary value of historic rights issues such as the UNESCO –Slave Route Project, mediation and a culture of peace
supporting the Conventions, Declarations and Treaties of the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Educational Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) to which ICOM and the South African government are party:
• UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948
• UN Treaty/Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951, 1967
• UN Treaty/International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families of 1990
• UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity of 2001
• UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions of 2005
noting The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996:
• Preamble: South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity
• Founding Provisions: Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms
• Bill of Rights: a cornerstone of our democracy in South Africa. It enshrines the rights of all people in our country and affirms the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom
condemns the xenophobic, ethnic and criminal violence in South Africa and calls on the heritage and museum sectors, national and international, in terms of their mandate to engage with public issues of social change, to support efforts to address the root causes, avoidance and ending of such violence.
Professor HC Jatti Bredekamp (Chairperson), Dr Helene Vollgraaff (Secretary/Treasurer), Dr Jillian Carman, Rooksana Omar, Beverley Thomas, Dr Shahid Vawda.
29 May 2008
Falsely or unsubstantially accusing someone of racism is one of the reasons why we have this xenophobic mess going on in our country. In the context of this discussion, a comment on the accusation of racism is a comment on xenophobia.
RACISM = RACISM
Dear Anthea
My apologies for not responding to you after my initial accusation of your comments being racist in your blog “It’s time to volunteer…”. I did not mean not to qualify those sentiments and to leave it hanging in that way, but the events of the two weeks, with the tragic death of artist Gabisile Nkosi, had overtaken most of us who knew her.
I am going to try to respond to you as best as is possible under circumstances when I feel very little respect for you as a writer. When I first read your slight of the JAG, the Urban Concerns project and myself, I was deeply offended. After reading the subsequent responses from my colleagues, your readers and yourself, I am simply outraged at your arrogance.
What started off as nothing short of defamation, slander and self-righteousness posing as ‘art criticism’ and humanitarianism, has demonstrated a disturbing trend in the South African visual arts circle of young white conservatism actively engaging in a back-lash against young black artists, curators and writers who are speaking out against the latent racism that infests this field.
It is important to establish why I think this instance nothing more than a denigrating racist piece of writing:
Firstly, the fact that you are a white South African and I am an Indian does matter, but not in the very reductive way you have portrayed it. You, yourself, simply reduce an accusation of racism to a white person not being able to comment on or ‘criticise’ a person of colour’s work without that the white ‘critic’ then being labelled a racist. What hogwash! You are not the first white critic to criticise a black artist’s work and you are not the first person to diss me or my work in the 14 years I have been exhibiting. You are more than welcome to google my name and see the crap – fairly or unfairly that is written about me by other white art writers. (To this end, Ed Young at ArtHeat, could you at least spell my name correctly.)
So why the offense then? Because you don’t critique the work (a fact that clearly and most embarrassingly escapes any of your white readers/respondents). And here maybe respondent RIC can help us all out. RIC would you tell me what the critique of my body of work over nine years is in the sentence, “Maybe Sharlene Khan will daub some portraits of suffering refugees and take them to Sweden?” or in her later responses, “ because I do find them conceptually and technically (and perhaps ethically) patchy”, “when I have merely passed a comment hinting that I find her paintings and drawings aesthetically clumsy and somewhat patronising”? (Between the 25th of May, when Anthea first commented on me, and the 28th of May, my work, in her esteemed view, my artistic practise went from exploitative to ‘may be ethically patchy’ to ‘somewhat patronising’.)
Respondent RIC if this is your idea of art criticism, then my best advice to you is that you do yourself a favour and read alot more art criticism from outside the country and get yourself a bit more informed before you use words like ‘intellectual’. Clearly you don’t know much about the field of art criticism and what informs its ‘theoretical/executional’ strengths and weaknesses (this one really had me laughing RIC!). I thought I would do you a favour and get some basic definitions of art criticism you: ‘An organized approach for objectively studying a work of art consisting of four stages: description, analysis, interpretation and judgment; An organized system for looking at the visual arts; The process and result of critical thinking about art. It usually involves the description, analysis and interpretation of art, as well as some kind of judgement; A strategy in art for life that involves thoughtfully talking and writing about art and visual culture. It systematically examines the forms of art and visual artifacts, their uses and meanings, and contextual information; An oral or written description, analysis, and interpretation. With regard to art and visual culture, a critique involves digging (figuratively) below the surface of a work to find profound or hidden meanings in the work itself or in the way it is used or valued. Critiques may also take visual form. The point is to make visible what was hidden and invisible—that is, to understand how images and performances convey meanings and to understand the meanings conveyed.’ [These are very general definitions of art criticism and critique – I’m sure anyone capable of using google can have access to them or if they want, to delve further into more detailed arguments around art criticism.] Anthea has merely skipped the descriptive, analytic or interpretative aspects of art criticism and instead only presented a judgement of my art practise (I seem to have to reiterate this all the time, not of a single work of mine).
There is no criticism here of the nine years worth of artwork here, or even a single artwork produced. The statement “Maybe Sharlene Khan will daub some portraits of suffering refugees and take them to Sweden?” conveys four meanings simultaneously:
a) That I have or am likely to produce images of suffering refugees,
b) That Sharlene Khan exploits images of suffering refugees or disadvantaged people – if so, I would like you to provide examples of my work of this to substantiate your opinion,
c) That I do not put much effort into the conceptual or technical aspects of my work – this conveyed by the way I will ‘daub’ portraits of suffering refugees,
d) That I am willing to exploit opportunistic suffering of the disenfranchised for international exposure in the art field (by the way Anthea, this is the second international invitation I have had to display my work in Europe, the only other invitation I have ever had was to an artist-run exhibition in India).
Does any of Anthea’s statement engage with what the subject matter of my work of the past nine years has been? What aspects of that body of work does Anthea find patronising and what does she find clumsy – aesthetically, technically, conceptually? Yes, Anthea’s big aesthetic critiques of my artwork, when pushed to elaborate on her criticism, are conveyed by her use of my work being ethically and technically ‘clumsy’ and ‘patchy’ while she attempts to dazzles us with big words like ‘nodal’, ‘surreptitious’ and ‘trajectory’ (By the way Anthea, what are those ‘art critic’ qualifications of yours and how many years of study did it take to learn aesthetic judgements like ‘patchy’ and ‘clumsy’?). What is clumsy, patchy and patronising about my work Anthea and which work do you mean – the ink or charcoal drawings, the paintings, the installations, the performance? At least choose one. And in that art criticism degree you have or the course that you took, did they not teach you at least to try to contextualise the work, provide a bit of history to it, locate in within a wider South African art context when you are providing a judgement of this sort? No? Once again, Anthea Buys, I would seriously like you to provide me and your other readers with your art criticism qualifications. In black and white. My qualifications are on the table for producing my ‘bad’ art – I have two Masters degrees in Fine Arts. So what’s yours?
In your email dated 29th May, to Fouad Asfour, you say, ‘Just because she [Sharlene Khan] is interested in the urban presence of migrant workers in South African cities, and Johannesburg particular, doesn’t mean that I have to agree with how she chooses to explore these concerns artistically’. Hmm, finally something we both agree on. You then go on to say, ‘You seem to think that I have launched a lengthy attack against Sharlene on racist (or other, personal) grounds, when I merely passed a comment hinting that I found her Urban Concerns project at BildMuseet in Sweden dubious….. Still, this doe not mean that I have to think her technical and conceptual execution of her thematic concerns is effective.” Yes, but for the love of all the art critical gods, HOW????? Does the fact that you are not thumbsucking an opinion on a public platform mean anything to you Anthea? What are the qualitative criteria that you have used to determine that the work is ‘dubious’ and ineffective on a technical and conceptual level? What in the execution leads you to this conclusion? Do you in fact have any basis for which you have judged my body of work ineffective? I would certainly like to know this because quantitative judgements like effectivity is in itself quite dubious. Unless you have more than your mere opinion to judge this work. Clearly StreetNet.org, an international street traders organisation, which saw my work last October in Durban, and carried out an online interview with me felt differently about my work. These people, who are involved everyday with street workers and lobbying on an international level for street traders’ rights did not feel that I was in any way patronising the people I portrayed or the way I portrayed them. But you, as a young white middle-class woman, with little interaction with street traders felt that I was being patronising, and with no qualification for this, have deemed my work exploitative and ineffective!
Anthea is unable to talk about my body of work for two major reasons: Firstly, Anthea doesn’t know much about my work (she could have done some quick internet research and taken more convincing potshots armed with a few examples of my ‘suffering refugee’ pics, but she was even too lazy to attempt this), and secondly because Anthea and the likes of Anthea, do not visit our exhibitions, they don’t talk to us about our works, they don’t write about our work. She instead passes on slander about an artist as a critique of the artist’s work and modus operandi.
You say in response to Dina, ‘I am not at all attacking Sharlene as a person, or insinuating that her actions in these circumstances are not compassionate. My comment was an allusion to her participation in the Urban Concerns project’. Once again, I would like to find out how the comment ‘Maybe Sharlene Khan will daub some portraits of suffering refugees and taken them to Sweden?’ is critique of my participation in the Urban Concerns project and on what level. I have to confess that when I was at the BildMuseet in Sweden, I don’t recall seeing you at any of the openings, events or talks around the issues raised in my work – in fact I don’t remember seeing anything written in South Africa about it (oh and Anthea, I didn’t just have an installation displayed, there was also a 10 metre mixed media work which you failed to acknowledge). So I would kindly like to have your sources of information on my participation in the project elaborated on and what about it irked you so much. And so you don’t have a problem with artists Anthea Moys or BJ Engelbretch’s works? Just mine (although we have yet to hear what this is). And instead of challenging me about this in a written critique of the work or the project, which by the way the Urban Concerns curator Veronica Wiman has been challenging people to do via the website, you felt that at the moment of a wave of xenophobic violence and your moment of humanitarian effort, that this was the time to slander me as an artist dealing with issues of street trade and xenophobia? Instead of using the platform already provided by the Urban Concerns website to challenge those who will still participate until September with the project itself to urgently address the current xenophobic onslaught in some artistic endeavour that you see fit, you felt this best done by taking a swipe at a single artist on the project whose participation was in January in Sweden which revealed some of the issues that have been reinforcing xenophobic attitudes? If you felt so deeply about my patronising attitudes Anthea, why didn’t you address it in January, or in March when I exhibited at the Esikhaleni exhibition (the very same works which were exhibited as part of the Urban Concerns project) or at the Joburg Art Fair, or my solo exhibitions in Cape Town or the solo shows that I had last year in October at the KZNSA or the BAT centre? That sounds like more than enough opportunities for you to have engaged me critically about any ‘patronising attitudes’ displayed in my work, which as a very concerned ‘art critic’, you should have taken up immediately.
So what do find patronising about my artworks Anthea? Could you have at least told us this? Is it because I am Indian and many (not all) of my subjects are Black South Africans or immigrants and refugees from other parts of Africa? Am I considered patronising in my artwork because I empathise with people who make a honest living selling wares in the informal sector because as a youngster I had to go door to door selling pillows with my younger brother (from foam that my parents picked up from recycling bins) and hated the experience and have always remembered how people treated us? Is that what you consider patronising? Do you not consider David Goldblatt, Guy Tillim, Sue Williamson, Mikhael Subotzky, Alison Kearney, William Kentridge, Steven Cohen, Santu Mofokeng, David Koloane, Kay Hassan, Andrew Tshabangu, Zwelethu Mthetwa, Ranjith Kally, Omar Badsha, Nontsikelelo Veleko, Sotiris Moldavanos, Roger Ballen, Mlu Zondi, Deborah Poynton, Billie Zangewa, Sam Nhlegethwa, Helen Hugo, patronising because of the urbanised subjects they deal with? And what exactly makes me patronising – the fact that I am an Indian woman dealing with Black persons (sounds a bit like the same reductive stance that you used to judge my racist accusation as unfounded)? Or the fact that I come from a different economic class structure? Or is because I am tertiary educated? Maybe it’s because I am Christian? And if it is any of this, then I guess the vast majority of artists in South Africa are patronising to their subjects in their artwork because they dare to engage with identities other than their own. But you didn’t actually mention any other Joburg or South African artist working within the urban environment framework did you? Nope. Just me. Not the two other white South African artists in Urban Concerns, one of whom, Anthea Moys, very recently returned from Sweden. Just me. Not my artwork. Just me as an artist.
So, having established that you have in fact, said absolutely nothing about my artwork, but only at my apparent ‘willingness’ to sell art about suffering refugees to an international market, let us continue with why I think your initial piece – and your wonderful later responses – show us your racist mentality.
You apparently think you know what artists of (any) colour should be doing and producing, and when we argue back, you belittle us. Us, people of colour, according to your responses are just not able to understand what you are trying to say (even those people with PhDs who have written to you). This was Anthea’s response to my criticism of her, ‘And I do have a right to point fingers. It’s called a free press. In the grownup art world critics are allowed to criticise art’ (this from a writer who called herself in one her posts ‘a fledgling journo’). This newbie white woman on the scene feels that she needs to tell me about the ‘grown up’ world of art criticism – hmm, now why do I think this superiority complex racist? When she is criticised for her rather bad decision to insult just one artist in the face of a huge humanitarian disaster, Anthea constantly writes to people saying that they don’t understand what she was trying to say and that all she was trying to comment on ‘was an allusion to her [Sharlene Khan’s] participation in the Urban Concerns project’. Yet, time and time again, Anthea is unable to state what she finds problematic with my participation in Urban Concerns. But it is not only Anthea that belittles myself and the other respondents. It is her white readers as well that simply dismiss my accusation of her racist commentary as unfounded or unwarranted, and I have to them justify my intellectual and artistic capacity for daring to engage with her like this (RIC’s wonderful referral to an ‘intellectual level’). Is this the white level of intellectualism RIC?
To further belittle me, Anthea would like her readers to believe that I am simply levelling such a serious accusation against her, because as an artist I am offended that she does not like my work and that she is white and I am Indian. I think I have established above that Anthea has thus far said absolutely nothing about what in the work she finds aesthetically, technically or ethically ‘clumsy, dubious’, which is something you would think was a given when critiquing an artwork, but that she rather attacks me as an artist with dodgy morals, passing it off as art criticism, then insulting me as a reader and an artist when I am offended by this sheer disregard for my artistic practise. Anthea simply cannot comprehend that I would take offense at someone accusing me of hawking off artworks of suffering refugees to an international art market to respond to a social disaster. That I might have actually had some thoughts on my position in relation to the people I depict, that I might actually have considered how my renditions of disenfranchised people may add or take away from stereotypes of them, not only once again insults my intelligence and my artistic practise as a whole, but also belittles my tertiary education. To say that one person of colour patronises another in depiction just because they have chosen to engage with this kind of figurative representation is just too lame. That Anthea clearly has not seriously thought about the depth of what she has so carelessly written, without any consideration of how what she said can be read in different (defamatory) ways, says much about Anthea’s understanding of her craft and the platform within which it manifests.
Tell me Anthea, how is it that you can slander someone in a most unqualified manner (your defense being that it is an opinion) in a public platform, and when I call you out for the racist that you are, you tell me – an educated black person – that it is not racist, and I am just supposed to defer to what you say, because after all, you have said that it is so. I cannot be right because your sentiment emanates from your position of apparent white superiority, authority and Western education and well-meaning sentiment (have black people in this country even lost the discourse of race to our white benefactors?). It is simply not racist because, after all, you are not calling me a ‘coolie’ or trying to enforce where I sit on the train or whom I can marry or having me die from slipping on a bar of soap. Because the only form of racism you understand is the crude barbaric ones. (Fikile-Ntsikelo Moya recently wrote: ‘Somehow we have developed the idea that unless you lynch niggers in a plantation or bang the heads of uppity black detainees against the prison walls until they die you are not really racist’. M&G, 29 May 2008). Your less educated white readers, one of whom sells paintings of topless women in panties and boots have judged your actions non-racist, I am therefore simply to accept this? The fact that you audience is completely unable to understand what constitutes racism, apart from the banging of Negro heads, is shocking and naive.
What you can do though, is tell me how I should be making art, what kind of art you think I should be making, in what technique, what ethics you think should or has informed my work, when I should make the work that you find aesthetically, technically and ethically pleasing, and when and in what space I should present the work. In fact, you can then also tell me how to talk about my work, what perspectives and theorists I can or cannot use, and just how much information you think I have or should research on my area of inquiry.
You can also never deem me worthy enough to waste 5 minutes of your time speaking to me about my work and challenging me about my practise, having never attended any of my exhibitions, and you can judge me (not the work) in the advent of a humanitarian disaster, as not doing enough, and in light of your own charitable acts. In fact, you can have ignored my whole art career and wait for the worst acts of violence in South African history to tell me you think the work doesn’t respond to the immediate crisis. Clearly the Reitz hostel drama and Johan Nel slaughtering 4 black people were not enough of a crisis to prick your conscience. What have you done in your capacity as an art ‘critic’ and writer towards Nwabisa Ngcukana’s molestation at Noord Street taxi rank, which you bring up as an example time and time again? Do you think merely mentioning it in unrelated contexts helps what is a truly terrifying display of gender, racial and cultural inequality and brutalisation? Did you write about the very men who have carried out the attacks on Nwabisa or the victims of xenophobia? Did you in fact, as a writer, do anything about these causes that you feel justified to condemn artists and art institutions for not immediately engaging with these issues? One standard for yourself, another for everyone else (so who then is the narcissist in these exchanges?) Do you think you have the right to determine what causes we should take up as artists, as Sharlene Khan, as Urban Concerns, as JAG? And what criteria makes you a judge of what causes are the most important for us to engage with and when? Please tell me what qualifications in your CV determine when and how we, as artists, should take up causes that are most serious, complicated and terrifying in their social ramifications? Tell me what are your qualifications to judge our actions ineffective and untimely?
But what’s more, you judge one black (or as you like to refer to me, an Indian) artist’s work as ineffective and patronising but then you validate the works of other white artists and collectives, even so far as going to say, ‘The Trinity Session is concerned not only with the place of art in an urban context (this is more in accordance with Stephen Hobbs’ personal artistic interests) but also with the sustainability of art industries in a developing nation. As for the JPP, its goals are similarly long-term, and while it does propose to facilitate art events that speak to circumstances in its immediate urban environment, for the moment, this aim is being met…’. So Anthea Buys has become an artistic judge of what works and what doesn’t in the art world and the public art forums? In fact, Anthea’s earlier blog comments on the coolness of the Trinity Session’s ‘street art’, in which Anthea says, ‘The intervention of art for urban transformation in the city is a cause dear to the Trinity Session, and something which it has really pioneered as a practical and frequently successful enterprise in Johannesburg’, shows that she clearly has a different set of standards for urban transformation for the Trinity Session and the JPP and for Urban Concerns, an artistic exchange between Umea, Sweden and the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Wonderfully, to illustrate her point that other (white) artists are doing all they can to address the xenophobic cause Anthea writes, ‘The German artist Hans Winkler is presently conducting a “Walking Newspaper” project from the Drill Hall, which involves a number of local artists contributing works that reflect on their direct engagement with the immediate dynamics of the city space. This newspaper project will, no doubt, address the matter of xenophobia and the related threat of violence in the inner city, in some way. The newspaper will be printed in approximately two weeks.’ This is the same artist that Anthea writes about in the Mail&Guardian (30 May – 5 June 2008) and I quote, ‘In keeping with this aim, Winkler appended wheels to bookcase and began to cart it through Joubert Park with a small group of supporting performers. “The public responded really well,” he said at a lecture he gave at the Goethe-Institut recently. “People were taking books and reading aloud in the street…some were singing and dancing.” This is of course not at all patronising to the natives for Anthea, as it is done by white (international) artists. Oh and shall we mention the fact that this project of Winkler was started in 2005 in San Francisco (as Anthea clearly mentions in her article) and, if it is going to be dealing with xenophobia, is doing so because it is currently in production at the very moment of the crisis?
In fact, what you could simply do Anthea is send out a memo to black artists in the country telling them what they should be doing, how and when, because we clearly are not following the programme as you see fit. Wait a minute, why does this all seem so familiar? When was the last time we had a white person in a position of authority telling us what we were doing ‘wrong’ and the much better plan that they had for us, a plan that was for the betterment of us all, if only we would understand. When was the last time that ‘the standard’ was determined by white authoritarians? Less than a decade ago, Kendell Geers was doing the same thing to artists. One of his scathing remarks of David Koloane reads, ‘Koloane utilizes the formal and conceptual language of a historically located movement (Abstract Expressionism) that occurred nearly half a century ago, … where Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings were the products of many years of exploration and analysis of the nature of representation at that specific point in history, David Koloane merely plagarises an existing style without engaging any of the issues involved’ (Geers quoted in Lipson, 1999: 21). This year, David Koloane was awarded an honourary doctorate and next year he will be the subject of the first Living Pioneers symposium that will be held at Wits University. His place in South African visual art history is sealed. This is the same David Koloane who has written about how white artists and writers have made judgments about what works black artist were expected to make. Just like Geers, Anthea is incapable of actually saying anything substantial in the way of a critique of the work, but rather seeks to attack the actual artist instead and the fact that they are making work at all. Looks like things simply haven’t changed.
And Anthea, I’m still very curious as to what initiatives you think JAG, Urban Concerns and myself specifically should be engaged with? Did you come up with these initiatives as you drove in your car to the JAG with your window rolled up? Hmm, really not nice when someone comes up with generalisations about you and yet they know nothing about you or what it is you do, is it Anthea?
Moreover, that someone of your position employs an almost ethnographic approach – of talking about helping the local natives (replete with the sick infants and ailing pregnant women imagery) and what the natives have done right or wrong, almost as if people of colour can’t understand you or can speak for themselves – via your online diary in which you get the last word, is very old-school colonialist. Hmm, but I bet you didn’t think of that, because, after all, what you were doing was trying to help… But since when, and I think you put it well ‘… has an artist’s [in this case a writer’s] good intention exonerated her from criticism?’ In your email to Fouad, which you then edited an set up as another blog piece, you say, “… and kept my accounts of my personal activities to a minimum, apart from indicating where I went, what I saw and what a fellow volunteer might expect to do when he or she arrives at a relief centre, based on my own experience (how else am I supposed to provide such information?).’ Did it even occur to you Anthea that you could have simply written the piece on what you witnessed during your volunteering, and have let the piece be simply about these atrocious acts of xenophobia? That you could have simply as a writer – arts or not – used your skills as a writer to convey what you saw and given information on how to help without then pointing fingers at JAG, Urban Concerns and me? Was what you, and others doing, not enough of an attempt at humanitarian effort that you decided to take what could have been an adequate noble attempt at using your platform and turn it into a medium to bash other people and projects? I must say, that was a serious grand leap you took from volunteering at the sites of immediate need, to dissing the government, JAG, Urban Concerns and myself in a few lines. Perhaps we could get the Minister of Arts and Culture, Pallo Jordan, to respond to your finger-pointing and wagging? Maybe you could advise him what art initiatives you thought were best for the JAG to carry out in the name of the government, to end xenophobia, crime, gender inequality, racism, poverty, etc.
And let me get this right Anthea. The blog format was sufficient for you to provide information on the terrible circumstances of persons affected by xenophobia but it was not a good enough platform for the Urban Concerns project to launch information about xenophobia and certain activities that artists were involved in last week. In fact you say in an email to Fouad Asfour, ‘Anyone can set up a blog, as Urban Concerns has, and post 3 entries about xenophobia. This has not met my expectations of Urban Concerns, based on the sort of presence some of its representatives have, at the outset of the endeavour, projected it would have in the public realm.’ So you do a single post on xenophobia and your own humanitarian efforts, and that somehow raises the standard by which everyone else’s initiatives should be judged? In fact, this is the dismissive way Anthea speaks about the postings of xenophobia on the Urban Concerns blog, “…. has done nothing to address the wave of violence in Johannesburg other than inviting the public, via the Urban Concerns blog, to a banner painting session before Saturday’s protest march’. This of course is contradictory to what she later told Fouad Asfour about the ‘3 entries about xenophobia’ after he had pointed out that postings on the Urban Concerns website predated Anthea’s initial posting on the issue. So she back tracks to cover her arse. But what Anthea is saying here is that that banner painting session was not important in her agenda of what constitutes ‘worthy’ humanitarian efforts. The fact that banners made at that session where not only carried in the vast majority of local and international media imagery of that Saturday march, but by other local Joburg residents who then went on a march days later, was clearly of little value for Anthea or her ideas of what constitutes art activism and public art initiatives. In fact, Anthea’s volunteer posting ends by saying, ‘If you are a blogger or reader from an affected area other than Johannesburg and have important information or links to share with other readers, please post it in a comment below.’ Here again we witness Anthea’s amazing double standards, one for herself, and one for the rest of the world. Her blog site is good enough to distribute information about the xenophobia and relief efforts and is considered therefore to contributing in trying to help, but when this is carried out by (again predominantly black) artists on the Urban Concerns website, then it is simply ‘inadequate’. I think the word for this is ‘hypocrisy’.
But really Anthea, the fact that Urban Concerns has not met your expectations, must say something more about what your expectations were. Am I one of the ‘representatives’ who projected what the Urban Concerns project’s presence in the public realm would be? If so, I would like for you to provide documentation of this. If not, then once again, Anthea, why did you not seek to address these particular people who raised these expectations at the JAG’s open session on 23rd February 2008, on the Urban Concerns blog or on your blog previous to the xenophobic attacks? After all, your initial blog did read that you were ‘sceptical that Urban Concerns would respond in any relevant or creative way, and for now at least, I appear to have been right.’ So are we to understand that your apathy at challenging Urban Concerns from the onset or in a direct manner is now a premonition to be held against the project and JAG in the wake of a national crisis? In your own words, ‘What use is the tallying of facts in the news if at the end of the day no one can be held accountable for their (in)actions?’ My, my, one standard for one white person, and another for a black person. Yes, you’ve said nothing prior to volunteering at need centres, but my artwork which has increasing spoken about the stereotyping of Black South Africans, African immigrants and refugees for many years is now not good enough for your standards and ineffective and let us use those big art critical terms again ‘dubious’, ‘patchy’ and ‘clumsy’.
Just in case you have lost concentration Anthea, let me summarise quickly why your piece – and subsequently your position – is racist:
1. You did not in any way produce any sort of qualification (still) on my bad patronising artwork in your racial defamation and slander of me, as a person, and my artistic practise at large (at least any that corresponds to international art criticism standards). You choose to attack one artist from the Urban Concerns project (not any of the white artists who have more recently participated) and not a single other artist working with the urban environment in Johannesburg. This is not an artist whose work you have ever written about or challenged before the national catastrophe occurred. This is the one black artist on the project whose participation was in January 2008 only. It just happens to be coincidental that this artist has also written about the dominance of white women in the visual arts field and the lack of racial transformation within this arena.
2. You assume a position of authority telling us what we should do, how and when we should do these artist initiatives that you find worthy. The fact that you can assume this position of authority and arrogance, can only stem from your attitude of superiority and the fact that you seem quite content in your M&G online platform to commit such nonchalant racial slander, defamation of my character as an artist and a person and judgement on my art practise as a whole.
3. You belittle me and other people of colour who criticise your piece that we have missed your point and do not understand what you are trying to say, when we are all telling you that the way you have presented the argument was flawed in the first place. People have accused me of ‘hijacking’ the xenophobic cause portrayed in your piece but it is actually you that set up this hijacking in the first place by taking a piece on your (legitimate) humanitarian concern and then unnecessarily trying to extend this into an art ‘critical’ piece that condemns one institution, one project and one artist to not have done anything in the face of this crisis. You constantly belittle me as being anti-intellectual when I have criticised not only what you said, but the fact that you have chosen to unveil your judgment of 9 years of my artwork at a most unfortunate time like this. On your post of 27th May, in response to me and Grace Musila, Anthea’s response is, ‘And I do have a right to point fingers. It’s called a free press. In the grownup art world critics are allowed to criticise art.’ Is that not belittling me, my education and my position Anthea? And by the way, if this remark was not racist and belittling, please explain to all us people of colour why you have subsequently removed it from the blog – after all, this was your blog and your right to free press as you claimed in your statements? In the grown-up world of art criticism, that I am aware of Anthea, art critics actually try to provide an actual art critique and assessment that broadens the reading and interpretations of an art work within the visual arts discipline and socio-historical context within which that work was created. It actually is not art criticism when you simply say you don’t like an artwork.
4. You have dismissed the ‘non-art’ interventions (like the banner making session and our participation in the march on the 24th of May, and all the other things that people with integrity have said nothing about) that we as (predominantly black) artists and people of colour have done as ‘inadequate’, because you did not find it worthy, while utterly contradicting yourself by saying that we should instead use our art skills and roles as artists to intervene while you yourself laud your own hands-on approach, setting it as the example of humanitarianism (‘ if you absolutely can’t volunteer..’ like I, Anthea Buys did?).
By the way dear readers, in her email to Fouad Asfour (which she then edited and set up under the blog ‘Art Criticism = Racism’, Anthea’s opening statement is ‘Thank you for your long comment on my blogpost in which you defend Sharlene Khan and try to squash me with your international kudos.’ What kudos with that be Anthea – how did you establish Fouad’s ‘international kudos’ from him penning his name at the end of his posting on your blog? He certainly didn’t flaunt his ‘international kudos’ at you. So because you do a little research and find out that Fouad Asfour was one of the editors on the Documenta 12 magazine initiative, you then turn that into a personal insult. A bit tribalist in the face of your sentiment about a blog being an open format. In an attempt to silence people of colour and our contestations, in your email to Fouad Asfour, Anthea ends by saying that we will put an end to this matter soon. She then proceeds the next day to edit this email and paste it as another blog saying that art criticism equals racism to certain racially sensitive people (once again belittling all of us who have condemned her writing of this particular piece).
You are not a critic, just a really bad young writer trying to aim high and gain a foothold in the artworld as a writer by dissing other artists under the guise of art criticism, which you have yet to demonstrate you have any capacity for. You are a bad excuse for middle-class parasitism which feeds of an art industry that you cannot really be involved in, but nonetheless hanker after. The Alanis-Morrisette-Jagged-Pill act might be entertaining for your Doing-It-For-Daddy circle, but when you personally slander people across the racial and cultural lines with such authority and self-assuredness, then it offensive to say the least. Your position is not unique, but is indicative of a new brand of conservative racial politics emanating from young white men and women with what borders on right-wing attitudes, who feel threatened when their privileged positions of authority are under attack, and instead of actually being able to talk about this in open forums, they use whatever ‘artistic’ or other platforms they can to devalue and denigrate black artists, curators and writers, without even trying to qualify their stance with anything more than ‘this is my opinion’ – and even if it is flown under the M&G online banner, that doesn’t assure readers that there will be any substance or validity to it. These people are so self-assured and arrogant, that they can dismiss any criticisms of themselves and their judgements as us, poor black folk simply not understanding what their superior intellect has penned down. They need not have written a single word about your work before, but then in the face of social catastrophes, they can whip out their humanitarian-cum-writer-turned-‘art critic’ sticks and deem what you have done for most of your art career as unworthy. And simple criteria of art criticism, such as contextualising their criticism or actually presenting what it is they are criticising be damned, because they are white and they have an opinion and they are not afraid to flaunt it. Through both your arrogance and ignorance, you have brought forward a number of debates that really do need to be engaged with immediately: whether ‘freedom of press’ allows latent racism to slander people of colour that they don’t like under the banner of opinion and art criticism, without what you call ‘racial sensitivity’ (which almost sounds like swear words in your writing) or qualification or any trace of ‘truth’; that racism can be perpetrated under the banner of the M&G online in the blog format without any ramifications for slanderous or offensive statements made; that your white readers clearly show that are completely unable to differentiate between an art critique and personalised slander of an artist at a time of human disaster which ultimately reflects the type of writing that historically has passed and currently passes for ‘art criticism’; that the M&G online provides any person, without appropriate qualifications of any sort, to literally berate artists under the heading of ‘Thought Leader’ and art criticism; that there is an ongoing trend by young white South African writers to consistently belittle, demean and devalue the works of black artists, writers and curators in the media; that there is a huge racial divide in the South African visual arts world (and indeed all the arts as Lebo M at the Naledi awards recently pointed out) that needs to be exposed; and that black people – regardless of how educated they are – can never engage with the very real issues of racism and the lack of transformation there is in arts (and other areas of South African society), because the white public will say we are merely using the race card when we see fit, because we don’t ‘understand’ or we cry race every time it suits us.
You are disgraceful and a shame to an already deficient South African art critical writing realm. I want to make two things clear here just in case you have missed these points in the long text: you have not produced a piece that can be read as an art critique because you have attacked the moral stance of me as a person producing art without any qualification whatsoever; and secondly, I stand by what I said – you are a racist. To quote Fikile-Ntiskelelo Moya again, ‘I called her action racist and people who commit racist actions, racists’ (29 May 2008). You are no less racist than those Reitz Hostel racist young men who thought it was ‘a joke’, their humourous portrayal of integration. You perpetuate your mentality of white superiority in your writing and your dismissal of black people, and the sheer audacity in thinking you can say this, albeit in a blog, and think it is all fine. That you choose to defend your position so vehemently without the slightest hint of any reconsideration of what all these people of colour are so offended about, only seals your status. This is not 1990 and black people don’t have to put up with such racist slander just because it is flown under the banner of the M&G online.
You could do the decent thing. You could reflect on what has happened over the last week and maybe, just maybe, you could do some understanding of you own for once. You could perhaps even concede that your judgment was not made at the best of times, and certainly not in a way that could be deemed as art critical writing. You could even try to see how what you have said might be deemed inappropriate. But I doubt it. I will not address you further on your blog site again. I wish you well in your attempts to do some growing up of your own.
Yo! Sharlene, your “chip” is showing girl. If you think the article is slanderous, just sue. That’s how us mlungus react to slander. I’ve often wondered why “artist” so self-centred and often such a mutually back-slapping bunch of egomaniacs.
They exhibit their work in little galleries and exhibitions, that 99% of people couldn’t care less about. A few rich people go and buy this stuff to satisfy their own egos without knowing whether it’s good art or bad.
Quite frankly I couldn’t care less about your skin colour, nationality, culture or socio-economic background. Quite clearly if you are using your art as an outlet to conscientise people about the plight of the black urban poor, or to get people to actually do something about them I don’t think it will have much impression on many people. The vast majority just don’t care enough about art or Sharlene Khan for it to have any effect on their psyche or behaviour.
If you are using your art as an outlet to deal with what appears to me to be an inferiority-complex stemming from a disadvantaged background then its also clearly failing in that regard also.
Your self-esteem seems rather fragile. Understandable perhaps, but obviously your tertiary education has failed and artistic talent has failed to deal with your inability to overcome what was a racist and economically deprived background. You come across has someone who has psychological problems. A balanced person would not have responded to what was essentially an opinion piece on a blogsite with such viciousness.
Perhaps you should seek some other outlet for your anger. Redirect it in a direction that would have a more direct impact on the lives of the urban poor, and at the same time give you more of a sense of accomplishment.
Get off your high horse Sharlene. I actually quite like browsing in art galleries and enjoy looking at the paintings and sculptures, etc. But I just don’t see the point of scattering the walls of my house with representations of the destitute to try and remove some sort of guilt feeling that may need assuaging. I’ve seen some of your paintings, and I’m not qualified to judge them as works of art. For what its worth I thought them quite good; but not the sort of thing I’d want hanging on the walls of my house. Perhaps something a little more uplifting to the spirit?
Ye gods.
1. You can not address Urban Concerns of downtown Jozi from Upsalla, Sweden. Or even Umea. Thabo Mbeki tried that one.
2. Sharlene Khan’s work sucks the piles off an eskimo. If an Indian, Macedonian or Czechnian made such crude doodles, they would fail art at secondary level. Miss Khan, you want Art Criticism? But ‘a critique involves digging (figuratively) below the surface of a work to find’ profundity. Excuse the pun, but your work is skin deep. There is nothing below the surface. You wasted your tertiary education money because anybody with the ability to hold a paintbrush with hand, foot or mouth can come up with better. I’ve seen works by blind painters which were better.
Perhaps you should’ve spent more time in visual art class rather than with the kids in Che Guevara T-shirts toting Karl Marx tripe while listening to Rage Against the Machine.
3. Miss Buys has not belittled anyone of colour except the white jingos who keep the malalapipes of Joburg fenced out of art exhibitions which address their concerns. Miss Buys reads your blog, maybe you should return the courtesy. You can read, you have access to the Internet, which makes you middle class too?
4. Blogging is emerging as a serious platform. Even some political campaigns are augmented with blogs, but I can assure you three posts prompting a box of tissues are not going to address urban concerns. Thoughtleader is a fairly high profile blog – it probably gets more hits than Urban Concerns. Urban Concerns probably gets much more hits now that it is mentioned on Thoughtleader. Look at your stats. Look at the dates. Do the maths. Thank Miss Buys for the exposure, and most of all get back to the figure drawing class.
5. You allege that Miss Buys is a poor writer, but you fail to offer any valid criticism of her writing. You even fail to mention your credentials as a worthy literary critic. You only call her white and it seems like a racial slur in your context.
6. It is apparent that you would feel much differently if Miss Buys’ piece were written by someone who isn’t white. You shouldn’t throw rocks when you live in a glass house. Most of all, get back to figure drawing class after googling this: movement, unity, variety, balance, emphasis, contrast, proportion, rhythm, perspective.
7. Don’t give hate a chance.
Yea, I agree with Jeff. Maybe you should get a job Sharlene.
Ooo I do like a nice bit of cheese, Gromit! Gorgonzola anyone?
Well, if I wasn’t put off the South African ‘formal’ art scene by its complete insularity and frequent vaunting of the mediocre as exceptional because there are no alternatives, these fabulous diatribes have now done it for me.
Most particularly because as I now discover, much to my dismay, that I have no business looking at or commenting on art as my tertiary qualifications are in more mundane subjects.
If there is defamation, sue – I agree. I’m sure some delightful patron of the arts will sponsor such a venture, particularly if there is de facto proof of racism embedded in the defamatory statements. However, beware of the countersuit; it can be one’s downfall.
The usual reaction from sensible people on receiving pointless and unwarranted criticism from an unqualified person is just to dismiss it with something relatively simple of the ‘like you would know, idiot’ variety. I think that would probably have sufficed the first time around; the defence-by-counterattack method unfortunately means that that option is no longer available.
I really think you lot should take this stuff offline so that the rest of us don’t have to Jik-and-Omo our eyes when we run into it by mistake. You’ve both had one hell of a say. Stop trying to each get the last pointless word in and go somewhere else real quick.
Good for you Sharlene excellent comeback.Finally you have given voice to a problem that has been festering for quite sometime in the south african art network.Once again well done!
At the end of May, Anthea Buy’s criticism of the Urban Concerns initiative at JAG and particularly Sharlene Khan’s contribution stirred up a hornet’s nest. See my response below.
http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/antheabuys/2008/05/28/criticism-racism-a-note-to-fouad-asfour/#comment-40711
I am all too familiar with this scene of battle where a critic or writer expresses a view on an artist’s work, or a writer’s work and the response is antagonistic. Chantal Mouffe in her book, On The Political, defines two kinds of confrontation which I think are critical to both the battle between Khan and Buys and the attacks on foreigners that took place and take place in South Africa. Mouffe defines two kinds of spaces in which confrontation takes place: the antagonistic and the agonistic. In the first, the other is the enemy, and the violence inflicted on them is real and actual. People are exposed, torn from their homes, beaten, locked up. In order to be treated in this way language is deployed to dehumanise them. They are labelled by the aggressor to the point where they, the other, become an object which can be broken without conscience or reflection. The discourse of antagonism is that of enemy and friend and it is a fatal discourse. The agonistic space, is one of conflict also, but is mediated so that the confrontation is symbolic, and exchange between two parties with opposing views. Democracy, Mouffe suggests, is a system whereby forums are set up which substitute the agonistic in place of the antagonistic. Symbolic thinking plays a key role in the construction of these agonistic spaces. Think of sport, voting, parliament, art are examples of democratic spaces where conflict is constantly mediated. To paraphrase Mouffe: when voting is rigged, when agonistic spaces are dismantled death enters the scene.
The problem, as I see it, both between Shan and Buys, and local xenophobes and foreigners is the incapacity to tell the difference between the agonistic and antagonistic. What is interesting to note is how Shan, pointedly attacks the body of Buys. At no point does Buys even suggest racial designations. Shan, it seems, cannot tell the difference between the writing and the person, the discourse and the body, the real and the symbolic, and uses the marker “white” frequently to locate her attacks on Buy’s skin. I must commend Buy’s for, in her writing, she provokes the construction of agonistic spaces and it is a great disappointment to see that an artist, someone trained to tell the difference between presentation and representation reacts in this way. In much the same way as pejorative markers such as “nigger”, “kaffir” were used to construct the status of the enemy during apartheid, as a method of oppression, Khan uses “white” on Buys, as a way of shutting down dissent and dialogue. This is not really fair. Perhaps the artists should detach herself more from her work. And here I am not saying don’t be passionate or committed but perhaps attain a more productive, critical distance. Shan’s response suggests that this is not so much about racism, as the feeling that a critic has betrayed the aesthetic evangelism so often inherent in projects such as Urban Concerns, and a host of other so-called socially responsible art projects that fail to understand that audiences and project participants are capable of thinking for themselves and don’t need to be rescued. What did Walter Benjamin say? The aestheticisation of politics is fascism.
I am not an Art “lover” or Art “Hater”………..but good grief…this is like being at school with everyone’s two cents worth….Who actually cares, honestly, worry about yourself, to be caught up in what i think is “unproductive and a wasting of time. Life is too short……..
This little “barney” amongst each (with individuals using words they either googled or heard yesterday) other has made me not even want to attempt to be bothered with art. Im educated (Masters Degree is Strategic Management), and always looking for a cultural change, whether it be wine tasting, show’s at the theatre etc, but to here art bantering that will be forgotten about next year is ridiculous (take note bantering will be forgotten, so no one try say art will never be forgotten (argument closed)).
I love sports and not much of a “culture fan” , like I said, life’s short, someone wins, someone loses, things are forgotten. This is my two- cents worth, there are more important things to worry about…..start with family and friends…and do something different to the norm (Culture is my “different”) that will educate you and make you happy and most importantly…….have your own thoughts and assessments on the subject
Thank you all for reminding, and if something bad happens, its life……someone argues with u, WHO CARES…I might be young and naive and still need to experience life..But these are my thoughts..
Thanks Michael. You left out, “And don’t forget to use sunscreen”.
ahh sunscreen…….During winter I tend to forget.
With that pleasant response (whether it be sarcastic or not), I’m going to make an effort with read more of your columns, and maybe learn to understand (most of all appreciate) art a little…