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Patriarch: Changing representations of male identity in South African visual art at the Iziko South African National Gallery is part feminist fun, part a serious exploration. We drew primarily on artworks from the South African National Gallery's Permanent Collection to suggest a blurring of that much patrolled border between the genders.
Within a few days of opening there was some minor bruhaha about the inclusion of a Zanele Muholi photograph showing a strap-on dildo; but, as Robert Sloon wrote on Artheat, "it seemed like a strange thing to not include in a show called Patriarch".
Nadja Daehnke (Curator of Contemporary Paintings and Sculpture)
Andrea Lewis (Assistant Curator of Modern Painting and Sculpture)
Works by the following artists are included:
- Mustafa Maluka b. 1976
- Solly Disner 1909 - 1985
- Richard Wake b.1935
- Zanele Muholi b. 1972
- Wim Botha b.1974
- Helmut Starcke b.1935
- Moses Kottler 1892 - 1977
- Billy Monk 1937 - 1982
- Jane Alexander b. 1959
- Peet Pienaar b. 1971
- Hassan & Husain Esspo b. 1985
- Bobby Bobson b. 1928
- Billy Makhubela b. 1947
- Nontsikelelo Veleko b. 1977
- Robert Hodgins b. 1920
- Herman Van Nazareth b. 1936
- Wendy Schwegmann b. 1953
Masculine refers essentially to qualities, characteristics or behaviours deemed by culture or society to be especially appropriate or ideally associated with men and boys”
(Random House Dictionary)
Patriarch explores shifts that have occurred in the way that male identity is represented within South African visual arts. There are several sub-themes investigated within this overarching theme; namely, masculinity and the exercise of power, the male as dispenser (and hence arguably the victim) of this power, and the questioning of traditional conceptions of gender and sexuality.
The exhibition emphasises non-traditional interpretations of masculinity. The idea is not to restate the history of patriarchy, or to suggest a comprehensive overview of developments regarding male identity, but rather to suggest some possible subversions of the notion of patriarchy.
The word patriarch refers to a leader, a head or ruler of a territory or grouping. Associated with this word is a stern, sober attitude, a sense of control and dignity. Moses Kottler’s work of D.C Boonzaier (1918) suggests this attitude through a full-frontal composition, intense, forthright gaze and somber colours. This sense of power and dignity is subverted by the images which flank the Kottler painting. Both The Red General (1965) and Government Avenue, Cape Town (1961) depict people that are seemingly in charge: Herman Van Nazareth’s general is festooned with medals and Helmut Starke’s figures wear top-hats and coats to indicate their importance as members of parliament (the title of the painting refers to the avenue which runs in front of the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town). Both these artists, however, use brushstrokes, colours and compositions to show their figures comical, or suggest a loss of control.
The exhibition includes four portrait busts. The portrait bust has an historical association with patriarchy; the Romans shipped busts of their rulers throughout the Roman Empire and bronze and marble sculptures of heads of institutions or governments are commonplace in the Western world. Whilst the conventions of the official portrait bust dictate gravitas, symmetry and weight, the busts chosen for this show undermine such expectations. Solly Disner’s Portrait of Don (1944), for example, shows Don as foppish and animated, rather then as static and controlled. The conventions in both painting and sculpture of what could be called patriarchal portraiture are thus alluded to through the inclusion of portrait paintings and busts, but are deliberately undermined through the choice of the busts and paintings included.
Jane Alexander’s The Butcher Boys (1985-1986) and the assemblages by Peet Pienaar refer to the forceful exercise of political power. The figures in The Butcher Boys speak of evil and brutality; they seem immensely strong and hugely vulnerable at the same time. Pienaar’s inclusion of a toy soldier similarly suggests access to power, whilst also referring to young mens’ vulnerability to manipulation by external forces (often in the name of the patriarchal fatherland).
Many of the fundamental expectations and notions of patriarchy are instilled during one’s youth. As such, the works included by the Essop twins and Peet Pienaar clearly highlight the tension between the constraint and freedom of youth. Pienaar’s Who Am I? (1977) uses badges to refer to traditions and expectations imposed on male youths of his generation. The photograph Passing By (2008) by Husain and Hasan Essop contrasts with the constraint and existential conflict alluded to by Pienaar. Here the youth are shown as boisterous and carefree. Traditional culture, as represented by the white Muslim robes, here joyfully transcends stereotypes. The youthful twins are shown somersaulting in a whirl of colour of ‘hip’ streetwear and funky graffiti. Whilst Alexander and Pienaars’ works speak of identities constrained and shaped by external patriarchal forces, the Essop brothers suggest a possibility of re-inventing traditions to move beyond the power-plays and impositions of patriarchy.
Images by Mustafa Maluka and Lolo Veleko refer to the blurring of boundaries between male and female: the males depicted wear clothing and accessories that one normally thinks of as woman’s wear. Through this the images represent a rejection of stereotypes of maleness and the sobriety and sternness associated with this stereotype. The blurring of gender and sexual boundaries suggested by these images go to the heart of the question of patriarchy as patriarchy functions through imposing and demanding a clear and irrefutable difference, a much controlled line, between male and female gender.
In both these works the subject is a man who chooses to cross traditional boundaries: the depicted men deliberately deny male stereotypes through “cross-dressing”. Zanele Muholi’s work shows a woman taking on this power to self-identify. Much has been written about the phallus/ penis as a signifier not only of male identity, but of male patriarchal power. It is the aggressive, active nature of the phallus that is historically seen as a justification for male superiority and control; by corollary it is the woman’s “lack” (as it is described by Sigmund Freud) that supposedly accounts for feminine passivity and pliability.
The reference to lesbian sexuality in Muholi’s work suggests that the active role traditionally associated with the male is here assumed by a woman, thereby questioning what is normal sexual practice and expected gender roles. Muholi’s work potentially shocks and outrages because it shows a sex-toy and explicitly shows lesbian sexuality, but also because it attacks that last bastion of maleness: the physiology and the use of such as a justification for patriarchal power.
Themes of control and loss thereof, and the body beautiful are drawn together in a lighthearted way in Parade by Robert Hodgins.
