Great Texts/Big Questions: Andrew Hennlich
Hennlich will present Touched by an Angel: The Camp, History and Messianic Time in Athi-Patra Ruga's “Future White Women of Azania”.
This talk reads performance artist Athi-Patra Ruga’s saga the Future White Women of Azania (2006-2016) as a critical response to the myths and ideologies of nationalism. Appropriating Azania as an allegory for South Africa’s national history, the talk draws from Walter Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence” to understand how Ruga’s public interventions, photographs and tapestries in FWWoA reread frameworks of historical memory against the grain of tradition to overcome the restrictive judgments of identity.
Andrew Hennlich is Assistant Professor of Art History at the Gwen Frostic School of Art, Western Michigan University. His most recent projects include an exhibition After the Thrill is Gone: Fashion, Politics and Culture in Contemporary Art, and an essay “Space Invaders: Border Crossing in Dan Halter’s Heartland.” He is currently completing a monograph on William Kentridge, and beginning a new book project on the role of the camp and migration in contemporary art.
The lecture, followed by an open question and answer session, will take place from 17:30 – 19:00 on Wednesday 8 March 2017 in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre, Old Medical School Building, UCT Hiddingh Campus, 31 – 37 Orange Street, Cape Town. Refreshments will be served from 17:00.
All are welcome. Please RSVP by 10am on March 8th at: ica@uct.ac.za.
For more information, contact the ICA office: +27 21 650 7156, ica@uct.ac.za, or Sascha Polkey at Rabbit in a Hat Communications: sascha@rabbitinahat.co.za | 021 300 0052.
Listen to the podcast here: https://icadownloads.uct.ac.za/Shared%20Documents/ICA%20Andrew%20Hennlich.mp3