Asai

South Africa in Black & White

Mario Pissarra, 30 January 2014

Note: originally published as editorial to Third Text Africa vol 2 no. 3m 2010

When, in 1989, Albie Sachs presented his paper “Preparing Ourselves for Freedom”, he was addressing two audiences. In immediate terms, he was addressing his comrades in the ANC, in anticipation of a transfer of power and the concomitant shift from resistance to governance. But he was also speaking to a much broader audience, much of which was not present at the ANC seminar in Lusaka, namely the nascent, democratic South Africa.

Re/framed 2

Mario Pissarra, 30 January 2014

Note: originally published as editorial to Third Text Africa vol 2 no. 2, 2010

Any day now one expects the proclamation that ‘contemporary African art’ is dead. After all, its been rumoured for some time, but it seems that no-one will listen until someone with an ego bigger than a continent says so.

Dis/locating Africa/s, or How Championing a Cause Lost a Continent

Mario Pissarra, 30 January 2014

Note: originally published as editorial for Third Text Africa vol 2 no. 1, 2010

Few could argue that it has been critically important to unsettle dominant notions of Africa. When Africa was widely reduced to a stereotype of backwardness, to an unchanging land without history and differentiation, it was imperative to challenge and counter this image by presenting imaginative and inspiring alternatives. In the main this was done by casting off the boundaries of continent and by turning the binary between the West and Africa inside out.

Re/centering Artists

Mario Pissarra, 30 January 2014

Note: original published as editorial to Third Text Africa vol 1 no. 4, 2009

This fourth edition of Third Text Africa compiles early texts from Third Text that address the work of specific artists. This act of validating earlier validations of artists introduces a set of its own questions. These questions apply more broadly to the related issues of visibility and validation than they do to the specific texts featured.

Surveying South Africa

Mario Pissarra, 30 January 2014

Note: originally published as editorial to Third Text Africa vol 1 no. 3, 2009

This third edition of Third Text Africa comprises selected articles on South African themes published in Third Text between 1991 and 2000. Each comprises a survey of sorts – whether a critical account of South African art practice or a review of an exhibition that was panoramic in scope. Since Third Text only covered a small fraction of such material generated during this period, this edition could be seen to be a random sample of a random sample.

Re/framed

Mario Pissarra, 30 January 2014

Note: originally written as editorial for Third Text Africa vol 1 no. 2, 2009

“Jerry Jones is a soul singer.”

That would be an innocuous sentence, except that, as Jones assures us, “Still waters run deep.”

Jerry Jones is a soul singer, but you won’t find her on an anthology of soul music. This may seem strange, particularly since Jerry Jones was a black, Alabama born singer who released albums in 1970 and 1971, i.e. when soul was entering its mature phase – Marvin Gaye was about to release Motown’s first ‘protest’ album (What’s Going On) and Curtis Mayfield was beginning his solo career.

Mud Times

Mario Pissarra, 30 January 2014

Note: Extracted from editorial for Third Text Africa vol 1 no. 1, 2009

For this inaugural issue of Third Text Africa I have focused on the critiques of neo-primitivism that developed in the wake of Magiciens de la Terre in 1989. This critique is ably encapsulated in the content and tone of Rasheed Araeen’s seminal ”Our Bauhaus, Others’ Mudhouse”. John Picton vividly characterised this curatorial trope as ‘neo-primitivist exotica’. In more recent times Sylvester Ogbechie has characterised it as the ‘Pigozzi paradigm’, after the collector inspired by Magiciens.