One cannot dissociate Pierneef from Nationalist politics but his work defies easy categorisation and kneejerk condemnation, writes Robyn Sassen.
Clouds, trees and mountains were constants in Pierneef’s work as seen in Thorn Tree at Dusk, above.
As you walk into the upper area of Johannesburg’s Standard Bank Gallery, the large paintings that dominate the space strike you with their sheer beauty. These works by South African artist Jakob Hendrik Pierneef show the magnificence of our land. But you cannot view A Space for Landscape without being subjected to values that might leave you bewildered.
The backdrop against which this exhibition takes place includes the #RhodesMustFall movement and, at a more sinister level, the Islamic State’s violent destruction of ancient sites in Palmyra.
The gallery is so keenly aware of the vulnerability of this displayed culture that you’re obliged to leave your handbag in a little locker in the gallery’s vestibule. Denuded, hopefully, of tools you could use to damage or deface the work, and armed only with the key to the locker in question, your eyes and your heart, you enter the space.
But can you strip yourself also, in a similar gesture, of political bias? Curated with clear savvy about how loaded but also how aesthetically pleasing this collection of paintings, drawings and intaglio prints by Pierneef (1886-1957) is, this brave exhibition poses questions and skirts assumptions about the proper source of beautiful art – or if beautiful art can be understood to have a source that is “proper”.
Much as we might like to believe that beauty is created by nice people with unquestionable morality, we cannot. The conundrum about whether art can be isolated from its political context, or whether it is a clear voice of the ideological values of the artist who makes it, is messy and insoluble.
Pierneef was a card-carrying racist. Until 1946, he was a seminal member of the Broederbond,movement that espoused the reprehensible thinking that was the kernel of the apartheid regime.
Is his art about politics? Arguably, it is much bigger.
See full review by Robyn Sassen in the Mail & Guardian
Pierneef’s work can be seen locally at The Rupert Museum and La Motte Museum
By kind permission of the Transnet Foundation, the 32 well-known Pierneef Johannesburg Railway Station panels are on view at the Rupert Museum in Stellenbosch.
The Rupert Museum, Stellentia Avenue, Off Dorp Street, Stellenbosch 7599
The largest room in the museum at La Motte is dedicated to the life and art of Jacob Hendrik Pierneef.
La Motte Museum, Main Rd, Franschhoek 7690
