The art museum in Africa - a utopia desired

Bibliographic Data

ID3609299
AuthorsAnitra Nettleton (0000-0002-2478-6648, University of the Witwatersrand, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume39
Issue3
Pages414-427
Publication date2013-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Dynamics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0253-3952 • E-ISSN: 1940-7874
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02533952.2013.850814
OpenAlexW1993128529
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited24

In this paper, I argue that museums in general are utopias, "no-places" in which categorisations of objects can be opened up for destabilisation. Following a discussion of the ways in which the categories "material culture" and "art" are reflected in museums, I argue that once the museum is transposed to Africa, its function as a space in which heritage is maintained through the conservation and preservation is thrown into disarray. I argue further that this is particularly the case with the most utopian of museums, the art museum. I argue that most African nation states do not have national art museums, and offer an argument about why they have museums of "arts and cultures" instead. I end with an analysis of the history and situation of art museums in South Africa and possibilities for alternative ways of conceiving the art museum as an inclusive rather than exclusive space.Keywords: artmuseumsAfricautopiacraftculture history AcknowledgementsResearch for this paper was enabled by funding from the National Research Foundation. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the ICOM/COMCOL conference at Iziko South African Museum in November 2012.Notes1. Until very recently, art history was the preserve of Western scholarship, and most books were written about European art, by Europeans or North-American white people. Haxthausen (Citation2002) edited an anthology that dealt with two realms of art history – the museum and the academy, and all the contributors wrote about Western Art contexts.2. Ardouin (Citation2009) argues that this process has been beneficial in the process of liberating such museums from their conventions of collection and display.3. The fact that Bourdieu's research was limited to France is not really problematic – the linkage to education is clear among most museum visitors once they are beyond being shepherded into museums by their (probably mostly educated) parents or by their teachers. Empirical evidence suggests that this is also the case in African societies today, where scholars (school learners) are the most frequent visitors – museum visits come to form part of their education.4. The workshop school at the National Gallery of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) under Frank McEwen was one instance where the presence of modern and historical western art was tied to the tradition of the local populations to produce a particularly modernist brand of sculpture. See Arnold (Citation1981).5. Useful discussions of some of the issues related to anthropological approaches to the study of art and aesthetics can be found in the essays in Coote and Shelton (Citation1992).6. From 1921 to 1944, the exhibition was held in the Duncan or Selbourne Halls. In 1944, it moved to the Johannesburg Art Gallery (at the time called the Municipal Art Gallery). For many years, black artists were included in a section entitled Special Exhibit by a Native Artist. The catalogues of the South African Academy Exhibitions (1921–1951) are accessible in the library of the Johannesburg Art Gallery.7. See Nettleton (Citation2011) and van Robbroeck (Citation1998) for a fuller discussion of these issues.8. Malraux fist engaged this idea in The Voices of Silence, which was published in English translation in 1953 by Doubleday. The Museum Without Walls was published as an expanded version of a chapter in the earlier compendium in 1967.9. See the press release at Wits Media Centre (Citation2012), and Nettleton (Citation2012b)

Argument (complex analysis · Art · Art history · Contemporary art · National museum · Performance art · Political science · Scholarship · Sociology · The arts · Utopia · Visual arts · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Law · Museology · Museums and Cultural Heritage

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