Presented by the University of Johannesburg’s Department of Arts and Culture, Deconstructing Dogma will include works by established artists such as Conrad Botes, Majak Bredell, Lawrence Lemaoana and Diane Victor.
Exhibition curator, Prof. Karen von Veh of the Visual Arts Department, said these interpretations of religious art provided a strategy for artists to engage with “perceived social inequalities” in South Africa.
“[The artists] will address… the ways in which religious iconography has been bound up with the regulation of society, construction of gender and racial identities, political and social change, abuse of power by role models and politicians, and violence,” she said.
Von Veh added that Christian iconography was a “useful communicative strategy” as it had permeated many cultures over centuries and its meanings were accessible to many people.
The spirituality of the iconography, however, is not something questioned by the artists in this exhibition.
The underlying social messages in the imagery is what caught the artists’ attention.
“Christianity in South Africa has a history of underpinning Nationalist state policies that reinforced the censorship laws and largely informed Afrikaner dominance under apartheid,” she said.
“By parodying sacred imagery in a transgressive way, these artists are able to engage transgressively with inherited religious sensibilities in order to disturb complacent viewing.”
One of the more remarkable works to be exhibited is Victor’s gothic altarpiece, No Country for Old Women.
The artist depicted, in smoke drawings on glass, some recent victims of violence and abuse, including Annene Booysens, and Victor’s aunt who was killed in a robbery, as saints in a church window.
The exhibition will also feature works by Wim Botha, Christiaan Diedericks, Christine Dixie, Gordon Froud, Julie Lovelace, Jacki McInnes and Derek Zietsman.
Deconstructing Dogma will run from 6 until 29 May at UJ Art Gallery, Auckland Park Campus, corner of Kingsway and University roads, Auckland Park.
Details: 011 559 2099; aedempsey@uj.ac.za
