Struggles over memory are commonplace in contemporary South Africa. The 1980s are an especially contested part of its past. That decade witnessed a mass resurgence of popular struggles that picked up a thread of civil opposition going back to the 1976 Soweto uprising. From outside South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) stepped up its armed struggle and sanctions campaigns; inside the country the United Democratic […]
In his book Art and The End of Apartheid, John Peffer writes about the Medu Art Ensemble: “For them a true culture of the people would be one that was not exclusive to the elite of the world of art galleries, but was seen in the streets, on T-shirts and posters (…).” There is thus […]
Art historian John Peffer’s book Art and the End of Apartheid (University of Minnesota Press, 2009) reveals the manner in which Black artists, or as he nuances the category artists who were influenced by Black Consciousness, were aesthetically and formally “post-apartheid” far in advance of the official political liberalization of the 1990s. He details the […]
