South African Visual Arts Historians (SAVAH)
Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA)
Colloquium
Organised by SAVAH under the aegis of CIHA, to take place at the
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 12 – 15 January 2011

CALL FOR PAPERS
Other Views: Art History in (South) Africa and the Global South

CIHA has recently been addressing concerns about the unequal distribution
of resources around the globe and challenges from post-colonial societies
to the older methods and concepts of western art history. At the CIHA
congress in Melbourne in January 2008, one of the key issues for
discussion was the extent to which we need to re-think the discipline of
the history of art “in order to establish cross-cultural dimensions as
fundamental to its scope, method and vision”. SAVAH proposes continuing
these discussions in the colloquium ‘Other Views: Art History in (South)
Africa and the Global South’ to be held at the University of the
Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in January, 2011.

A principal focus of the discussions, with particular reference to South
Africa, will be how the study of art from the African continent is often
impeded by a totalising notion of an undifferentiated ‘Africa’. This
belies the histories, political trajectories and regional differences of
its many communities, nations and states. The focus offers opportunities
to pose questions such as: What is the counter point to the homogeneous
‘African art’ label? How can art history in an African context challenge
traditional western art history with regard to notions of authenticity,
individuality, artistic processes, methods and theories? What are the
discourses of indigenous people’s art practices, and what is the
importance of early indigenous art for a history of art in South Africa
and elsewhere? In what ways, and under what circumstances, can objects
previously defined as ‘craft’ or ‘utilitarian’ be incorporated into the
domain of ‘art’? How is ‘heritage’ understood, collected and displayed?
What are the ideologies behind collecting, patronage and restitution, and
the use of objects, buildings and spaces? How do we negotiate questions of
identity and culture in an increasingly ‘global’ world? What do we choose
to study and why? How do we teach that which we choose to study?

These questions have relevance in South Africa, Africa and the Global
South. The Global South in this context is a cultural construct rather
than a geographic term. It refers to communities and artistic production,
throughout history and across nations, which, within the dominant
narratives of western art, have been ignored, marginalised, displaced and
appropriated. The Global South may include eastern bloc artists largely
unknown to the west during the Cold War, items traditionally regarded as
women’s work, First Nation peoples in Canada and indigenous people in
South Africa, communities whose cultural artefacts were appropriated for
the universal museum of the west, and people who have neither the power
nor money to write their own art histories. We do not envision covering
all aspects and areas of Africa and the Global South, but we shall use the
Global South construct as a framework to focus on Africa and in particular
South Africa. The aim is to complicate the history of art and the
relationship between histories in the Global South and the ‘north’ or
‘west’.

We plan six plenary sessions over three days, with provision for graduate
students to participate, possibly in parallel workshop and poster
sessions. We invite proposals for papers that address any of the general
rubrics outlined above. Proposals should be sent to the Chairperson of
SAVAH, Dr Federico Freschi at federico.freschiwits.ac.za.

SAVAH/CIHA Committee comprising Dr Federico Freschi (SAVAH Chairperson);
Karen von Veh (SAVAH Past Chairperson ex officio); Dr Jillian Carman
(SAVAH Vice-Chairperson)