South African Art in Context 1945-1976 (Paperback)Lize Van Robbroeck (OUT OF PRINT NEW)

Visual Century Volume 2: 1945-1976 - South African Art inContext (Paperback)Lize VanRobbroeck (OUT OF PRINT NEW)

Volume 2 of of Visual Century: South African Art in Context1907-1948 is part of a four-volume publication that reappraises South Africanvisual art of the twentieth century from a post-apartheid perspective. Lize vanRobbroeck is the editor of Volume 2: 1945 - 1976. Between the end of the SecondWorld War and the Soweto Uprisings, South Africa was increasingly isolated fromthe international world by its policies of racial exclusion and extreme socialengineering. The threats to the state of internal revolt and external pressure,posed within the broader contexts of decolonisation and the Cold War, caused itto adopt severe measures, with significant consequences for the art of theperiod. This volume addresses the fertile cultural ambivalences of this period.These include the relationship between Afrikaner nationalism and the emergenceof an 'official' South African art, whose central role would come to bechallenged by the steady increase in the number of modern black artists and newinformal art centres. Also discussed is the impact of white patronage, theresponses of migrant workers to rapid change, and artists' responses to therepressive political climate of apartheid, as well as to emerging blacknationalism. The allure and impact of European and American art capitals andmodernist discourse, for artists at 'home' and in exile, and not least thestruggles of black and white artists to define an African identity, is alsoexplored.