Public Art in South Africa

Kim Miller is Associate Professor at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, where she also holds the Jane Oxford Keiter Professorship of women's and gender studies and art history. She is a research associate in the University of Johannesburg's Visual Identities in Art and Design research center. Miller's scholarship, which examines the relationship between visual culture, gender, and power in African arts, includes her forthcoming book, How Did They Dare? Women's Activism and the Work of Memory in South African Commemorative Art.  Brenda Schmahmann is Professor and the South African Research Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture at the University of Johannesburg. She has written, edited, or coedited a number of volumes on South African art, the most recent of which are Picturing Change: Curating Visual Culture at Post-Apartheid Universities (2013) and The Keiskamma Art Project: Restoring Hope and LIvelihoods (2016).

• Introduction: Engaging with Public Art in South Africa, 1999–2015 / Kim Miller and Brenda SchmahmannAcknowledgmentsPart 1: Negotiating Difficult Histories1. A Janus-like Juncture: Reconciling Past and Present at the Voortrekker Monument and Freedom Park / Elizabeth Rankin2. A Thinking Stone and Some Pink Presidents: Negotiating Afrikaner Nationalist Monuments at the University of the Free State / Brenda Schmahmann3. The Mirror and the Square—Old Ideological Conflicts in Motion: Church Square Slavery Memorial / Gavin YoungePart 2: Defining and Redefining Heroes4. Public Art as Political Crucible: Andries Botha's Shaka and Contested Symbols of Zulu Masculinity and Culture in Kwazulu-Natal / Liese van der Watt5. Mandela's Walk and Biko's Ghosts: Public Art and the Politics of Memory in Port Elizabeth's City Center / Naomi Roux6. Commemorating Solomon Mahlangu: The Making and Unmaking of a "Struggle" Icon / Gary BainesPart 3: Erasures and Ruins 7. The Pain of Memory and the Violence of Erasure: Real and Figural Displays of Female Authority in the Public Sphere / Kim Miller 8. Transgressive Touch: Ruination, Public Feeling, and the Sunday Times Heritage Project / Duane JethroPart 4: Ephemeral Projects9. Public Art, Troubling Tropes: An Unsettling Intervention in Cape Town/ Shannen Hill 10. Unsettling Ambivalences and Ambiguities in Mary Sibande's Long Live the Dead Queen Public Art Project / Leora Farber11. Unsanctioned: The Inner-City Interventions of Julie Lovelace / Karen von Veh 12. Rage against the State: Political Funerals and Queer Visual Activism in Post-apartheid South Africa / Kylie Thomas13. Tell-Tale Signs: Unsanctioned Graffiti Interventions in Post-apartheid Johannesburg / Matthew Ryan SmithIndex

"This book alerts us to the pitfalls and potentials of public art in a stimulating and thought-provoking manner, and is highly recommended for specialist readers as well as a broader audience."—African Arts