The Sharpeville massacre
In response to new legislation being passed in South Africa that would require Africans to carry reference books and further segregate the population, a large group of protesters amassed in the township of Sharpeville. The local police response was brutal, and left 50 people dead and more than 100 people injured. This sparked outrage among South Africans and was even noticed on the international
stage. Out of this moment in South Africa's history came many
different responses to the social climate of the country. This led
the segregated peoples of South Africa to begin demonstrating
consistently to oppose the Apartheid and then-current South African
government. Soon an art movement arose in South Africa alongside this
new climate of unrest that would become known as Resistance Art.
Resistance Art is a term used to describe the movement of artists in South Africa at the time that opposed Apartheid and the growing separation in equality between the Afrikaners (minority whites) and the large African population. The movement mainly focused on creating works that designed to be overtly political or social in nature, often commenting on the situation many of the common people in South Africa faced. Some notable artists that were considered part of the movement were: William Kentridge, Dumile Feni, and Thami Mynele.
Resistance Art is a term used to describe the movement of artists in South Africa at the time that opposed Apartheid and the growing separation in equality between the Afrikaners (minority whites) and the large African population. The movement mainly focused on creating works that designed to be overtly political or social in nature, often commenting on the situation many of the common people in South Africa faced. Some notable artists that were considered part of the movement were: William Kentridge, Dumile Feni, and Thami Mynele.
Dumile Feni
One of the leading artists to come out of the initial Resistance Art movement following the Sharpeville Massacre was Dumile Feni. Very little is known about Feni, as much of his work either disappeared with him when he left South Africa in 1968, or is currently kept from much of the public eye in various private exhibits and collections in South Africa. Despite this fact, his work as a whole is seen as being highly influential to modern South African artists. William Kentridge had cited him as a major influence and specifically his charcoal works had a profound impact on Kentridge as a young teenager. Feni’s most famous piece, “African Guernica”, displays a common theme of Resistance Art, that is, the grotesque depiction of humans and animals that has some hinting back to more tribal art of past eras, displaying not only the history of the country, but also displaying the horrible suffering that went on for many of the citizens in Feni’s time. Unfortunately, Feni’s art career was ended rather quickly in South Africa, as he was denied multiple appeals to remain in Johannesburg and was forced to leave the country in 1968.
Thami mnyele
Thami Mnyele was a Johannesburg artist who worked primarily in the 70s and 80s. Much of his work was his personal reflection upon the heavily political events that were happening around him in his life. Much of his more widely known political art was his work through the art collective Medu. Through Medu, Mnyele created antagonistic works towards the established South African government, though many were untitled, and served as graphic elements in various publications for Medu and other political groups. Mnyele's style draws heavily from western political cartoons, while remaining based heavily in South African culture.
William Kentridge
William Kentridge was the son of a key anti-Apartheid lawyer who worked with sculpture, film, and print-maker. In college, he studied politics and focuses his academic research on his native country. Much of his art deals with the events and situations of South Africans from the late eighties up to the early nineties. The subjects that Kentridge looked to cover in his pieces ranged from the exploitation of land and the displacing of communities by the government in prints like Taking In The Landscape from Little Morals, to the political debate happening around the time of Mandela's release over social reform in The Battle Between Yes and No.