Short stories in a longer tale

Sue Williamson is one of the elder statespeople of the SA art world. Well-known for her socially committed and politically engaged work, she is also a consummate writer on art and an art historian, producing two benchmark books on critically engaged SA contemporary art — “SA Art Now” (2009) and “Resistance Art in SA” (1989). She has exhibited extensively all over the world.

Born in the UK, she moved to SA as a child and has, since the beginning of her artmaking life, found inspiration from the need to speak out against social and political injustice — particularly through the apartheid era.

Her first major statement in this regard combined her anti-apartheid activism with her lifelong feminism, in the iconic series of portraits of women involved in the country’s political struggle, titled A Few South Africans (1980s).

The new exhibition at Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg acts as a precursor — and is in dialogue with — the forthcoming retrospective of her five-decade long career, scheduled for February 2025 at the Iziko SA National Gallery in the artist’s hometown, Cape Town.

Titled Short Stories, in a Longer Tale, it also marks 30 years since Williamson’s first solo show at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg in 1994, one that incidentally won her the Vita Art Now Award for best exhibition in SA that year. In common with her lifelong practice, the new exhibition sources historical archival references to weave several different narratives about South and West Africa’s social and political history. Her expansive use of different media and materials is also on show, with different series of works encompassing printmaking, photography, drawing, video, embroidery and installation.

The exhibition sets out a long historical trajectory, with satire, incisively critical imagery and delicate humour to the fore. Taken in chronological order, the story arc of the show begins with The Diaries of Lady Anne B, derived from the personal papers of Lady Anne Barnard, wife of the first British colonial secretary to govern the Cape from 1797-99. Williamson uses these diary entries in a series of satirically Hogarthian collaged monoprints with calligraphic notes. A series of embroideries forms the works in the series Stories for Children, based on the illustrations in My Anglo-Boereoorlog Storie-Inkleurboek, a colouring book bought by the artist in the gift shop at the Anglo-Boer War Museum (now referred to as the SA War) in Bloemfontein in the late 1980s.

Williamson is in more familiar territory in a selection from her well-known photographic series All our Mothers, designed to foreground the role of women in anti-apartheid activism between 1948-1999. In this exhibition this takes the form of a photographic portrait of struggle stalwart, Ray Alexander, known for her lifelong fight in support of the rights of workers, and an installation, A chair for Ray Alexander. Also on show is a series dedicated to activist Nyameka Goniwe, widow of the assassinated leader Matthew Goniwe, titled Cradock: Caught in the Flood.

Other parts of the exhibition form similarly self-contained narratives: in Cold Turkey: Stories of Truth and Reconciliation, Williamson tells the story of the horrific experiments Eugene de Kock carried out to test a cassette player that was also a bomb. Her 2014 work, Pass the Parcel, Jacob, uses contemporary newspaper cuttings to take a damning stand against Jacob Zuma in his rape trial. A series of ink drawings called Postcards from Africa poignantly reinvents the subjects of early colonial postcards in West Africa, their dignity and identities somewhat restored by their presence from out of history.

Williamson’s storied career is essential to the understanding of much of the SA contemporary art landscape. Don’t miss the opportunity to see the show in Joburg before her Cape Town full retrospective.

• Short stories, in a longer tale is on at the Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg until August 24.