Sites of trauma, bodies of recovery: the work of contemporary South African artist Jane Alexander
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Sites of Trauma, Bodies of Recovery: The Work of Contemporary South African Artist Jane Alexander explores the interconnections between the aesthetics of trauma in post-apartheid culture, history, and politics through the provocative work of Jane Alexander (b. 1959). Her work, particularly her earlier works from the late 1980s and early 1990s, find a welcoming home within the context of South Africa’s violent struggle to end apartheid. Her figures have hybrid features. However, their hybridity is continually undercut by a perpetual slippage into the monstrous and abject. Using Alexander’s work as a case study, I argue that the visualization and recognition of violence and brutality serves as an essential instrument for remembrance and even catharsis during the transitional period (1970s-1990s) of South African political rule. Through the recognition and acknowledgement of past traumas, viewers gain entry into a complex negotiation of discomfort, remembrance, and catharsis. Themes of state violence, domination, and surveillance force viewers to contemplate the sources of violence and their implicated roles in these systems. To acknowledge the truly violent nature of humankind is to implicate one’s self in a relationship to such atrocities. It is easier to dehumanize violence than it is to see humanity in violence, and this transitional state of being between man and monster is where Alexander’s artworks reside.
Table of Contents
Introduction -- National Identity and Reconciliation: The Visualization of Violence in the South African National Gallery -- Sites of Becoming: Trauma and the Ontology of Space and Place in Jane Alexander's African Adventure -- Locating the Monstrous in Bom Boys and Infantry -- Conclusion -- Appendix A. Interview Jane Alexander
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Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)