Emerging in the late nineteenth century and gaining currency in the 1930s and 1940s, Afrikaner nationalist fervour underpinned the establishment of white Afrikaner political and cultural domination during South Africa’s apartheid years. Focusing on manifestations of Afrikaner nationalism in paintings, sculptures, monuments, buildings, cartoons, photographs, illustrations and exhibitions, Troubling Images offers a critical account of the role of art and visual culture in the construction of a unified Afrikaner imaginary, which helped secure hegemonic claims to the nation-state.
This insightful volume examines the implications of metaphors and styles deployed in visual culture, and considers how the design, production, collecting and commissioning of objects, images and architecture were informed by Afrikaner nationalist imperatives and ideals. While some chapters focus only on instances of adherence to Afrikaner nationalism, others consider articulations of dissent and criticism.
By ‘troubling’ these images: looking at them, teasing out their meanings, and connecting them to a political and social project that still has a major impact on the present moment, the authors engage with the ways in which an Afrikaner nationalist inheritance is understood and negotiated in contemporary South Africa. They examine the management of its material effects in contemporary art, in archives, the commemorative landscape and the built environment. Troubling Images adds to current debates about the histories and ideological underpinnings of nationalism and is particularly relevant in the current context of globalism and diaspora, resurgent nationalisms and calls for decolonisation.
Tabla de materias
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Trajectory and Dynamics of Afrikaner Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: An Overview – Albert Grundlingh
Part 1: Assent and Dissent through Fine Art and Architecture
Chapter 2 Afrikaner Nationalism and Other Settler Imaginaries at the 1936 Empire Exhibition – Lize van Robbroeck
Chapter 3 From Volksargitektuur to Boere Brazil: Afrikaner Nationalism and the architectural imaginary of modernity, 1936-1966 – Federico Freschi
Chapter 4 Afrikaner Identity in Contemporary Visual Art: A Study in Hauntology – Theo Sonnekus
Part 2: Sculptures on University Campuses
Chapter 5 ‘It Is Not Even Past’: Dealing with Monuments and Memorials on Divided Campuses – Jonathan D. Jansen
Chapter 6 Knocking Jannie off his Pedestal: Two Creative Interventions to the Sculpture of J H Marais at Stellenbosch University – Brenda Schmahmann
Part 3: Photography, Identity and Nationhood
Chapter 7 Celebrating the Volk: Photographs of the Voortrekker Monument’s 1949 Inauguration by the State Information Office – Katharina Jörder
Chapter 8 Reframing David Goldblatt, Re-thinking Some Afrikaners ¬– Michael Godby and Liese van der Watt
Part 4: Deploying Mass Media and Popular Visual Culture
Chapter 9 The becoming girl: Anton van Wouw’s Noitjie van die Onderveld, Afrikaner Nationalism and the Construction of the Volksmoeder Discourse – Lou-Marié Kruger
Chapter 10 Cartoons, Intellectuals, and the Construction of Afrikaner Nationalism – Peter Vale
Chapter 11 Manifestations of Militarisation: Visual Narratives of the Border War in 1980s South African Print Culture – Gary Baines
Contributor biographies
Index
Sobre el autor
Liese van der Watt is an independent art historian based in London.