Figuring the Animal Autobiography: Animals and Landscapes in Daniel Naude's Exhibition ''African Scenery & Animals''

Abstract

Daniel Naude's exhibition of photographic artworks, "African Scenery & Animals", is discussed in this article, to consider the ways in which images of animal beings are mostly received as figurative vehicles for anthropocentric narratives. Naude's particularised portraits of AfriCanis dogs and other domestic creatures are considered in relation to figurative anthropocentric analysis of the artworks that the artist's gallery and other reviewers have undertaken. I argue that Naude's oeuvre is more in line with J.M. Coetzee's fictional character Elizabeth Costello's notion of imaginative empathy, proposing the capacity of human beings to imagine what it might be like to be an(other) (Coetzee 2004: 79), and that Naude's portraits of animal beings provoke imaginative empathetic (Coetzee 2004: 79) transposition in the viewer. I recount my imaginative empathetic encounters (Coetzee 2004: 79) with particular artworks from the "African Scenery & Animals" series, and consider the imperial legacy of the landscape genre and the photographic medium employed by Naude in relation to the artist's use of destabilising formal and contextual devices.

Opsomming
In hierdie artikel bespreek ek Daniel Naude se uitstalling van fotografiese kunswerke, "African Scenery & Animals", om die maniere waarop beelde van dierewesens meestal as figuurlike mediums van antroposentriese narratiewe beskou word, in oenskou te neem. Ek kyk na Naude se verbesonderde portrette van AfriCanis-honde en ander huisdiere met betrekking tot die figuurlike antroposentriese ontleding van die kunswerke wat die kunstenaar se galery en ander resensente onderneem het. Ek voer aan dat Naude se oeuvre verband hou met J.M. Coetzee se fiktiewe karakter (Elizabeth Costello) se idee van verbeeldingryke empatie, waarvolgens mense die vermoe het om voor te stel hoe dit sal wees om 'n ander te wees (Coetzee 2004: 79). Ek voer verder aan dat Naude se portrette van dierewesens verbeeldingryke empatiese transposisie in die kyker ontlok (Coetzee 2004: 79). Ek vertel van my verbeeldingryke empatiese blootstelling aan bepaalde kunswerke uit die reeks "African Scenery & Animals", en oorweeg die imperiale erfenis van die landskap­genre en die fotografiese medium wat Naude gebruik met betrekking tot die kunstenaar se aanwending van destabiliserende formele en kontekstuele middels.