DASART ESSAYS

Valerie Leigh works for the Kwazulu-Natal Provincial Administration. Her portfolio includes art in Kwazulu-Natal. This interview took place after the first stage of the DASART COLONIAL MUTATIONS installation, called DASART VICTORIA, which was exhibited at the Tatham Art Gallery in 1995. Valerie had found that some of the general public were shocked and offended by the installation, and she discusses some of the publics questions with two of the Dasartists. This interview coincided with a video documentary that the Kwazulu-Natal Provincial Administration were making of the installation.

Valerie Leigh discusses: in an interview with the Dasartists Michael Matthews and Mike Moloney.

How do you see Dasart's role in the current South African situation?

Mike: I see DASART as a driving force in the South African art world.

Michael: ... challenging the current perceptions through challenging social paradigms. The creation of an integrated and coherent exhibition that involves a group of artists working together with similar aims on a single idea is quite novel internationally, never mind locally. This installation should carry vast repercussions on how the world is seen, contributing to a paradigm shift that could open the way to a new attitude. Of course, this is affected by the amount of exposure that the installation receives. Fortunately the installation is travelling nationally at present, but there are still galleries that have not offered to show it. It's this kind of narrowness that censors the potential power of creations. Some of the National and Municipal galleries are still tied to showing conventional or safe exhibitions, often those supported by big financial backers. I see the role that DASART plays in the South African situation as determined by forces outside of our control, but we are going to make every attempt to bring our ideas to the wider public.

I liked the DASART exhibition. I think it makes a very real statement. Something that needs to be said now. As you see it, what is the purpose of this exhibition?

Michael: We have used juxtaposition to create interconnections which has led to an experience of the event. The implied narrative has become the situation that has taken place in time. Thus, meaning has been re-created through metaphor. An essential aspect of this dialectic is established through the materials that we use.

Mike: The colonial works, together with the frames of gold gilt, are made from materials that attempt to allow the painting to be 'eternal'. The suggestion is that these values depicted should be everlasting. The DASART work by its very nature shows that artists have disregarded these values and by using industrial materials articulated the real issues of modern society in all its facets, from growth regeneration to obsolescence and decay.

Are you trying to knock the Victorian age?

Mike: If any ridicule occurs it is in the mind of the viewer, for no conscious attempt as such was made. By juxtaposing the Colonial works with the DASART works, it is natural that these works will reflect the social norms that are interesting, more than any attempt at ridicule.

Michael: This installation aims at re-contextualising and coming to terms with events, and a recent past that has tended to marginalise most of the population in South Africa But it's not an attempt to deny that past, rather as a way of opening up possibilities - of expanding on the difficulties and solutions and offering a way through. It's significant that some South African artists have felt the need to work together at a time when the political situation in South Africa is undergoing a dramatic upheaval, but we are not trying to link our content to a specific situation. The installation is challenging social paradigms - we are saying that we can work within a provided context, a context that we have had to live in without any choice.

Mike: What we have done is to contrast Colonial paintings with our works. In this context one sees the different attitudes of the artists from the two eras. Whereas the colonial works are generally two-dimensional illusions, in the sense that one is looking through a window, the DASART works are essentially three dimensional perceptions.

Michael: I think that the installation is, if anything, trying to point at contemporary norms. But this is not the only idea. The implication is that one has to come to terms with the past, whether (of) our own making or someone else's, in a process of reconciliation and integration. I mean a lot of this is happening on a social level; we are aware of this, but we are not offering solutions, rather only raising questions and questioning those questions. The Victorian art that was used in this particular installation is only an aspect of the problem. The installation covers an era that spans generations. We are at the arse-hole of the twentieth century with no escape and a lot of baggage to carry - it's time to look at the possibilities offered by that past. The installation also covers other colonial forces that have screwed up this country. Each aspect of the installation when re-created is re-thought, pending where and when the installation is to be held. In actual fact, the installation is pointing at a way of escape, through offering juxtapositions that provoke values, but that may not offer solutions.

I found the materials used by DASART very aggressive. Could you broaden on that?

Mike: The materials used in the constructions are materials of our everyday environment - metal, industrial paints, bitumen, etc. In this sense, the artworks have an immediate context. They depict the weaknesses of our society. We feel that traditional oil paint and canvas is too loaded with European connotations to be relevant to our South African context.

Michael: Our materials are the key to meaning. Meaning is created through juxtaposition and through experience. The materials are extremely tactile, they provoke a presence that has more to do with experience than passive response. They offer the spectator a chance to contribute through active participation in the work. The viewer can engage with the positioning and scale of the individual pieces in a direct way.