Where to put baskets in an art gallery? The place of traditional cultures in art history (3 posts)

Topic tags: South Africa
  • Profile picture of Kevin Murray Kevin Murray said 1 year, 5 months ago:

    This is a panel for the conference Mobility, Circulation, Transnationalism: Art History and the Global South in Johannesburg 12-15 January 2011 (see http://www.wits.ac.za/conferences/savah).
    Some of the questions include:
    How can innovation be accounted for within a collective practice?
    To what extent can Western institutions such as art galleries accommodate collective art forms such as village crafts?
    Are there productive ways in which individual artists can collaborate with traditional communities?
    How can what might be considered a traditional art form be given a diachronic reading through art history?
    How might individuals that emerge from collective settings to be granted status as ‘living treasures’, ‘masters of their craft’, or ‘artists in their own right’?
    How to traditional Indigenous crafts compared to hobby circles in the Global North?

    I hope we can keep track of the thinking around these questions here, with help of the participants.

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  • Profile picture of John Steele John Steele said 1 year, 5 months ago:

    herewith outline of my focus for this panel:
    Abstract for the panel “Where to put baskets in an art gallery? The place of traditional cultures in art history”,
    from John Steele, South Africa:

    Getting to know you and your artworks better: some reflections on ceramics practices and collections of works created by Alice Gqa Nongebeza of the Eastern Cape, South Africa

    This look at aspects of both the context within which Eastern Cape potter Alice Gqa Nongebeza practices zero electricity usage ceramics technology, and ways in which her works are marketed and collected, is geared towards demystification of certain aspects of visual arts practices and practitioners in remote regions of this province of South Africa. It will be seen that she is an almost unknown potter despite having practiced and influenced others to engage with clay as visual arts medium for more than five decades in the Port St Johns region, and that her works are not widely represented in public collections. Yet, there is also a growing public awareness of unique aspects of her ceramics practice and oeuvre that just might be gradually leading to a more widespread curiosity in some of the potters and works from that part of the Eastern Cape. But, will that growing attention be enough to draw such works closer towards becoming interesting to a broader spectrum of art historians, artists, art galleries as well as other commercial enterprises, and thereby encourage youngsters to pursue becoming artists and creating ceramic vessels for a living?

    From:
    Dr John Steele
    Senior Lecturer
    Dept Fine Art
    Walter Sisulu University
    Cambridge Street, East London, Eastern Cape Province,
    South Africa.
    Cell: +27847005864
    Email: jsteele@wsu.ac.za

    John has been a potter all his adult life, working both as a production thrower and then as a pottery manager of a larger ceramics enterprise prior to taking up a lecturing post where his focus is currently on Art Theory and Ceramics Practice.

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  • Profile picture of Kevin Murray Kevin Murray said 1 year, 5 months ago:

    Thanks for that John.

    Have you come across Moira Vincentelli’s book Women Potters: Transforming Traditions? She writes about ceramicists like Magdalene Odundo, many who have ‘made it’ in the north.
    There’s also Steven Smith’s writing – http://www.stevensmithpottery.com, which contains interesting observations.
    Most people would be familiar with Nesta Nala, but it would be interesting to hear about the Eastern Cape scene in your paper.

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