Introducing The Visual Dynamics of Art, Black Care, and Ethics in South African Art
By Raél Jero Salley | Published by Routledge, 2025
Book Overview
The Visual Dynamics of Art, Black Care, and Ethics in South African Art is a critical exploration of the intersections between visual culture, care ethics, and decolonial thought in the context of contemporary South African art. Nearly three decades after South Africa's transition to democracy, the nation continues to grapple with structural inequalities, debates over historical memory and struggles for cultural transformation. This book situates contemporary art as an essential space where these tensions are negotiated, offering a framework for understanding how visual culture actively participates in ethical and political life.
By examining the works of artists such as Zanele Muholi, Mohau Modisakeng, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Hasan and Husain Essop, and Kemang Wa Lehulere, the book demonstrates how art can function as both a mode of critique and a form of care—challenging viewers to consider what it means to look after freedom in a post-apartheid context.
This book will be of particular interest to scholars working in art history, contemporary art, visual culture, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of art, and African studies, as well as to curators, artists, and cultural theorists invested in decolonial methodologies.
Key Themes & Objectives
1. The Politics of Looking: Art as an Ethical Encounter
The book asks a foundational question: "What does it mean to look, after freedom?" In a society marked by historical trauma and ongoing social transformation, the act of looking is never neutral. This study explores how South African artists use visual culture to create encounters that demand ethical and political engagement.
2. Art and Care: A New Framework for Interpretation
Drawing on the philosophy of care ethics, Salley introduces the concept of "Black Care"—a mode of relational, affective, and communal responsibility expressed through artistic practice. This theoretical framework challenges dominant narratives of art criticism and provides a new lens for interpreting visual culture.
3. Decolonization, Memory, and Representation
Through case studies of contemporary South African artists, the book interrogates how art engages with historical memory, colonial monuments, and shifting cultural identities. Artists like Zanele Muholi and Mohau Modisakeng reclaim visual narratives that center Black subjectivity and lived experience.
4. The Role of Art in Post-Apartheid Society
The book critically examines the ways in which South African artists navigate the legacies of apartheid and global coloniality. By exploring themes of violence, resistance, belonging, and hope, the book positions contemporary art as a vital force in shaping new understandings of citizenship, identity, and freedom.
Selected Sample Pages & Chapters for Reader Engagement
To give readers a sense of the book's scope and intellectual depth, the following pages offer key insights and thought-provoking discussions:
📖 Introduction: "Objects, Histories, Senses" (Pages 1–16)
Establishes the book’s central question: How does looking shape ethical and political relationships?
Introduces key theoretical frameworks: decolonial thought, care ethics, and visual culture analysis.
📖 Chapter 1: "Touching Insights: Care, Difference, Ethics" (Pages 21–32)
Examines how South African artists navigate public memory, colonial monuments, and historical erasure.
Discusses the #RhodesMustFall movement as a case study of artistic and activist interventions in public space.
📖 Chapter 3: "Imagining, Persons, Archives – Zanele Muholi" (Pages 63–75)
Focuses on Zanele Muholi’s photography as a radical act of self-representation and Black queer visibility.
Analyzes the "Faces and Phases" series and its role in challenging normative histories of race and gender.
📖 Chapter 4: "Form, Idea, Passage – Mohau Modisakeng" (Pages 82–95)
Investigates Modisakeng’s use of performance, photography, and video to explore the violence of South Africa’s past and its lingering effects.
Discusses the symbolism of the Black body in contemporary visual culture.
📖 Chapter 6: "Place, Belonging, Formative Realism – Hasan & Husain Essop" (Pages 118–129)
Explores themes of Islam, race, and subjectivity in the photographic work of the Essop brothers.
Examines how their work navigates the politics of diasporic identity and faith in contemporary South Africa.
📖 Chapter 7: "Spirits, Histories, Fictions – Kemang Wa Lehulere" (Pages 137–150)
Discusses Wa Lehulere’s conceptual installations and their engagement with histories of violence, memory, and erasure.
Investigates how art can act as an archival practice, revealing hidden or suppressed histories.
📖 Coda: "Knowledge, Ethics, Imagination" (Pages 175–181)
Concludes with reflections on art’s role in shaping ethical futures.
Argues for a new visual language that resists colonial frameworks and opens pathways for new forms of social belonging and care.