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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Dismantling the Symbolic Structure of Afrikaner Nationalism: Gideon Mendel's 'Beloofde Land' Photographs (1989)
Author:Godby, Michael
Year:1998
Periodical:South African Historical Journal
Issue:39
Period:November
Pages:111-128
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:exhibitions
images
nationalism
Afrikaners
Great Trek
photography
History and Exploration
Ethnic and Race Relations
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Literature, Mass Media and the Press
About person:Gideon Mendel (1959-)ISNI
External link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582479808671332
Abstract:Gideon Mendel's 'Beloofde Land' collection of 56 photographs documenting the 1988 re-enactments of the Great Trek elicited strong negative reaction when it was exhibited at the Market Gallery, Johannesburg, in March 1989. This criticism serves as an object lesson in censorship and the blinkering effect of political prejudice. In the left-wing media, photographic representation of extreme right-wing groups has been utterly ambiguous. By reinforcing the elements of style by which the right wing defines itself, the left-wing media has created images that the right wing would find impressive and appropriate, while the intended left-wing readership would recognize the same images as objects of hatred. In the event, of course, the photographs depend for their interpretation on the text that accompanies them. Thus, in choosing to exhibit 'Beloofde Land' without text, Gideon Mendel for the first time was attempting to communicate a critical image of the right wing through the medium of photography alone. Unlike the tradition of newspaper photographs of the right wing, the 'Beloofde Land' photographs do not simply reinforce right-wing stereotypes. The exhibition in fact systematically interrogates these stereotypes and, in the process, undermines a large part of the symbolic vocabulary of nationalism in South Africa. Ref.
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