Socio-political art - including resistance art of the '70s and '80s - Jane Alexander Flashcards
When was Jane Alexander born?
1959
Where did Jane Alexander study?
The University of the Witwatersrand (WITS)
What did Jane Alexander study?
MA Fine Arts
When did Jane Alexander obtain her degree?
1988
Where does Jane Alexander live?
Cape Town
Where does Jane Alexander lecture?
The Michaelis School of Fine Arts in Cape Town.
What is Jane Alexander’s main influence?
The unjust political situation in South Africa of Apartheid and its related activities.
Why doesn’t Jane Alexander call herself a political artist?
She sees protest art as too specific but she has created some of the most lasting images of resistance art.
Give an example of resistance art created by Jane Alexander.
The Butcher Boys
What type of art does Jane Alexander create?
She is a sculptor.
What type of sculptures does Jane Alexander create?
Her sculptures are figurative and always related to the human figure.
How does Jane Alexander create the human form?
She uses human models and sometimes she casts straight from the human body.
What type of foreign and found materials does Jane Alexander use in her sculptures?
Bone, horns, plaster, wood, wax and paint.
What are the stylistic characteristics of Jane Alexander’s works?
She creates hybrids by combining human bodies with animal heads to explore the ambiguous nature of violence and vulnerability.
What effect does the hybrid sculptures create?
They force the viewer to rethink human behaviour. When a society feels unsafe people are often both victims and aggressors.
What issues did Jane Alexander’s early works focus on?
She explored the violence of Apartheid in the 80s but she never pretended to understand the suffering of political victims.
Which perspective does Jane Alexander work from?
She works from a personal perspective of being a white woman in South Africa.
Is Jane Alexander’s work a documentation of our past?
No, it is an allegorical image of suffering and violence.
When did Jane Alexander sculpt “The Butcher Boys”?
1985-1986
What style of work did Jane Alexander use to create “The Butcher Boys”?
The bodies are naturalistic, but the combination with animal qualities creates surreal figures.
What medium did Jane Alexander use to create “The Butcher Boys”?
Sculpture and found objects
What techniques did Jane Alexander use to create “The Butcher Boys”?
They were made form plaster casts taken from life, with the insertion of bone, horns, etc.
Describe “The Butcher Boys”.
3 life-sized and life-like plaster figures, naked except for genital coverings, sit on a wooden bench. They appear masculine despite the obscurement of their genitalia.
Do the figures in “The Butcher Boys” appear powerful or weak? Explain your answer.
They seem powerful but their bodies have been penetrated and damaged. Bone has been inserted into the flesh and flesh has been scraped away to reveal bone.
Describe the heads of “The Butcher Boys”.
The heads are only half-human. Horns grow out of skulls; the faces are distorted and flattened into snouts that do not open into mouths.
Why don’t “The Butcher Boys” have mouths?
Quite literally, they cannot speak the unspeakable or communicate with the voice of reason.
Can “The Butcher Boys” hear?
No, they also have impaired hearing since their ears are just holes.
What does the seated position of “The Butcher Boys” show?
It shows passiveness and it is almost as if they are waiting for something. They seem nervous and aware at the same time.
What reveals the humanity of “The Butcher Boys”?
Only their eyes reveal humanity. They are dark, glassy, hollow and haunting.
What did “The Butcher Boys” arise from?
It arose from a sense of horror at the increasingly repressive and brutal measures used by the Apartheid government to quell the violence of the 80s in South African society.
What has “The Butcher Boys” become a symbol of?
Institutionalised violence such as the Security Police who were involved in the death of Steve Biko, the Black Consciousness Leader.
What is the meaning of the title “The Butcher Boys”?
The title says that they are executioners or violent killers of some sort.
What is the theme of “The Butcher Boys”?
The symbolic relationship between the oppressor and the victim.
What does Jane Alexander seek to identify with “The Butcher Boys”?
The manner in which violence, aggression, cruelty and suffering are conveyed through the human figure. The violent, aggressive and powerful characteristics are shown in the same body that reveals helplessness.
What is the alter ego of aggression?
Vulnerability. Those who are secure and unthreatened do not need to bully, but when an entire society is insecure, all its members become both aggressors and victims.
Why does Jane Alexander consider vulnerability the alter ego of aggression?
Those who are secure and unthreatened do not need to bully, but when an entire society is insecure, all its members become both aggressors and victims.
How does Jane Alexander create an association with death in “The Butcher Boys”?
Through the use of bones and skulls.
Why does Jane Alexander use bones and skulls to associate “The Butcher Boys” with death?
In this way these figures that committed unspeakable violence are also often victims of violence. As butcher boys the figures are capable of butchering but as naked forms they are the equivalents of meat in a butcher shop.
What question does “The Butcher Boys” force us to ask ourselves?
Would we also become like them if we were forced to commit acts of violence and abuse?
What makes “The Butcher Boys” such a powerful piece?
Although they were created in a specific oppressive South African historical time, they have transcended it and their power lies in the fact that they touch our humanity deeply.
When did Jane Alexander create “Bom Boys”?
1998
What media was used in making “Bom Boys”?
Fiberglass, clothing, oil paint, wood, synthetic clay, found objects.
What style of work was used in “Bom Boys”?
The bodies are naturalistic, but the combination with animal qualities creates surreal figures.
Describe the subject of “Bom Boys”?
It consists of 9 life-sized sculptures of little boys, some with animal masks.
How are the 9 boys arranged in “Bom Boys”?
They are arranged atop a checkerboard grid with each boy utterly disconnected from the other children, even though many figures stand just inches apart.
How does each boy seem in “Bom Boys”?
Each child seems lost and bewildered creating a disturbing vision of a world without interpersonal connection.
Discuss the body language of the figures in “Bom Boys”?
The figures stand upright with their feet slightly apart, arms gently extended from their sides and with their palms facing outward in a non-threatening body language that, coupled with their diminutive size, suggests they are caring.
How many moulds were used to cast the 9 figures in”Bom Boys”?
They were all cast from the same mould.
How are the figures in “Bom Boys” distinguished from each other?
They are distinguished by their various stages of dress or undress: one is stark naked except for his polished black shoes.
Describe the faces of the 9 figures in “Bom Boys”?
All of the figures have their faces obscured to varying degrees by an unsettling animal mask (rabbit, bird and cat), a blindfold or a cloth.
What effect does the pale grey colour of the figures in “Bom Boys” have?
It renders them like ghosts.
When does the “Bom Boys” gain a somber tone?
When the viewer realises the vulnerable figures are not just randomly grouped but are instead positioned in a game such as chess.
What was the inspiration for Jane Alexander to create “Bom Boys”?
The work was inspired by street children. We know the desperate situation of street children and feel compassion for them.
What questions does “Bom Boys” raise?
Are the children at a masquerade? Are they 9 small men arrested in boyhood? Are they vulnerable and endearing, or are they gangsters in the making?
What makes the “Bom Boys” threatening?
They are strong and aggressive.
What unsettling link can be drawn between “Bom Boys” and “The Butcher Boys”?
Have the baby brothers of “The Butcher Boys”, damaged, masked and mutating survived to become the street citizens of South Africa?
Discuss the ambiguity in the expression of the small children in “Bom Boys”?
They are self-possessed, swagger a little and yet allude to the powerless social position of a child on the street.
What type of vision does “Bom Boys” create about street children?
It’s a frightening vision, their struggle for survival and the mechanisms they must use to survive like stray animals in a dangerous, urban jungle.
What does the ashen colour suggest about the “Bom Boys”?
It is suggestive of their death of childhood and also their invisibility to society.
