The book expands and explains the theme of the installation, containing essays by Dasartists Ashley Johnson & Michael Matthews as well as 35 black & white photographs. Other contributors include Val Sterley, Curator, Macrorie House Museum; Brendan Bell, Director, Tatham Art Gallery; Valerie Leigh, Arts & Culture, Kwazulu-Natal Provincial Administration; Graham Dominy, Director of Arts & Culture, Mpumalanga; & thought boxes by Dasartist Dave Andrew.

Table of Contents

• Introduction - Michael Matthews
• Dasart & Victorian Art - Ashley Johnson (16K)
• Victorian Culture & Colonisation - Val Sterley, Curator, Macrorie House Museum (11K)
• Post Victorian Culture - Graham Dominy, Director of Arts and Culture at the Department of Arts, Culture, Sport and Recreation for Mpumalanga (11K)
• The Tatham Art Gallery Victorian Collection : The End of Colonial Art ? - Brendan Bell, Director, Tatham Art Gallery (32K)
• A Philosophy of Reconstruction - Michael Matthews (11K)
• Dead End : Dog Art - Ashley Johnson (105K)
• The Dasart Colonial Mutations Installation : interview - Valerie Leigh (8K)
• On Coming off the Wall - Ashley Johnson (9K)
• Past Views & Reviews - Michael Matthews (13K)
• Exhibitions; collections; publications

Introduction

The exportation of raw materials, coupled with mass suppression has been an important aspect in the process of colonising South Africa.

In the process of colonisation there is a period of brief interchange between the different cultural ideologies. This has at times manifest with the exchange of artifacts and social perspectives. The dominant colonising ideologies playing a major role in determining the extent of the interchange. Religion has also played a major part in re-socialising countries that have been colonised. The coloniser usually establishes a dominant social perspective through a process of assimilation and imposition. Once the peoples are colonised, there is a period where a set of imposed values are enforced. This is achieved by the creation of new laws, a new religion and new cultural forms.

South Africa is such a land of historical 'progress', a land of colonial 'over-ride'. With the abolition of apartheid, South Africans have seen the possible 'death' of this initial colonial genesis. Concepts of equal rights and freedom have been bandied about by most political parties and their followers moving us into a new state of colonisation, possibly 'the garden of Earthly Delights' state. But, a large segment of the South African population are now in this Post-Colonial state with the vaIues and attitudes of the Colonised period. This book does not aim at generating a diatribe against these values, nor casting moral judgement on the South African Art Galleries past and present collection policies, but rather aims at a way of stimulating thoughts about the processes of vision and change that have occurred in South Africa.

DASART formed in this period that led up to a free and equal democratic political election in South Africa. The Dasartists see themselves as a message that was birthed out of this transition, and aims to create art works that are part of that message. DASART was formed with the express purpose of bringing together those artists with similar views in a search for a new sense of place and space. The result of this search is that the art works tend to occupy a space outside the pictorial plane, and utilise a scale that is architectonic.

This book forms part of the DASART vision. Although the book cannot be seen as an artwork in itself, many of the DASART strategies have been employed in its compilation. The contents of this book can be read as a multi-layered overview, or the individual articles can be selected for specialist information. Although this book is accompanied by an installation, entitled DASART COLONIAL MUTATIONS, of highly visual and physical imagery and materiality, it is meant to function as a point of departure for further discussion.

MICHAEL MATTHEWS

© Copyright Dasart 1997. All rights reserved.  Except for the quotations of short passages for the purposes of criticism or review, no part of the is publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher.

This production made possible by a loan form the Foundation for the Creative Arts.

ISBN 0-620-20103-7

Published by Dasart Productions :

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