Representing the South African Landscape: Coetzee, Kentridge, and the Ecocritical Enterprise

Abstract

South African artist William Kentridge’s Soho Series takes place inside a representation of a Johannesburg mine-landscape. It is a post-industrial and post- colonial landscape of exploitation both of the citizens of the country and of the natural environment. This article considers how the representation of the South African landscape by Kentridge can be seen as part of a continuum of landscape representation in South Africa originating from an initial “wilderness” encounter of a stranger with a new environment. The article traces the movement of landscape representation from those moments when writers and painters, schooled in a particular tradition of representational practices, find themselves forced to create new ways of representing the environment in which they find themselves to a contemporary moment where Kentridge’s engagement with landscape represent-ations can be seen as both ecocritical and environmentalist.

Opsomming

Die Suid-Afrikaanse kunstenaar William Kentridge se Soho Series speel af binne 'n voorstelling van Johannesburg se mynlandskap. Dit is 'n post-industriële en postkoloniale landskap wat getuig van die uitbuiting van sowel die landsburgers as die natuurlike omgewing. Die artikel handel oor hoe die voorstelling van die Suid-Afrikaanse landskap deur Kentridge gesien word as deel van 'n kontinuum van landskapvoorstelling in Suid-Afrika wat spruit uit die eerste "wildernis"-ervaring van 'n vreemdeling met 'n nuwe omgewing. In die artikel word die ontwikkeling van 'n beweging van landskapvoorstelling gevolg vanaf die momente waar skrywers en skilders wat in 'n bepaalde tradisie van voorstellingspraktyke geskool is, hulself gedwonge voel om nuwe maniere te skep om die landskap waarin hulle hulself bevind voor te stel, tot die kontemporêre moment waar Kentridge se betrokkenheid by landskapsvoorstelling as beide ekokrities en omgewingsbewus vertolk kan word.