ART BIOGRAPHY
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa.
B.A. Fine Arts (University of the Witwatersrand).
M.A.F.A. (University of the Witwatersrand). Dissertation on Socio-political art in SA.
Lives and works in Johannesburg.
National Corobrik Award Winner 1983. National Ceramic Art Judge.
First National Bank Award for Sculpture 1992.
Features in "Painters and Sculptors of SA"; "Contemporary Ceramics in SA"; "CraftArt".
Exhibitions:
“Brett Kebble Art Award”, Cape Town 2003
“Africa Apart Afrikanische Künstlerinnen und Künstler Konfrontieren Aids” Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst – Berlin, 2003
“Killing the [M]other”, Solo Exhibition, NSA Gallery, Durban, 2002
“Killing the [M]other”, Solo Exhibition, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, 2002
“Killing the [M]other”, Solo Exhibition, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, 2001
“Behind Closed Doors”, Sibikwa Community Theatre, Baxter Theatre, March 2002
Women’s Arts Festival, MuseumAfrica, August, 2002
“Healing through Creative Arts”, MuseumAfrica, November 2001
“ME3 – Manuscript Exhibition”, Grahamstown Festival, July 2001
5th GCC International Group Show, Osaka, Japan; 2000
Solo Exhibition, Generator Art Space 1999;
4th GCC International Group Show, Toluco, Mexico; 1999
3rd GCC International Group Show, San Francisco; 1998
“No 4” (Old Johannesburg Prison) 1997;
“2nd GCC International Group Show” (Paris) 1997;
“Siyawela” ( University of the Witwatersrand) 1996;
“Africa ‘95” (U.K.) 1995; "Africus" 1995;
“Johannesburg Biennial” 1995;
“The Cutting Edge” (Goodman Gallery) 1993;
Solo Exhibition, (Market), Johannesburg, 1991;
“Cape Town Triennial” 1985-1991;
“Recent SA Ceramics” (SA National Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery),
“Ceramics Now” (Unisa),
“Detention without Trail” DPSC Exhibition (Market), 1988;
Collections:
South African National Gallery, Pretoria Art Museum, Durban Art Gallery, William Humphrey Gallery-Kimberley, Corobrik Gallery-Pietermaritzburg, King George Gallery-Port Elizabeth, Lichtenburg Art Gallery, Galerie Handwerk-Koblenz, West Germany, Central Public Hall, Kamiyahagi and Tajimi-Japan.
BRIEF ART AND POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY:
For a number of years, has been researching and visually representing themes around the construction of masculinities, hegemonic and alternative, specifically in relation to abusive practice and violence against women and children. Currently writing a book on this topic.
Involved from 1983 in Anti-Apartheid South African politics - Honorary member and activist in the Detainee’s Parent's Support Committee (DPSC), up to its political banning in 1988. 1987 Publicity Secretary on the Executive of the anti-apartheid Five Freedoms Forum. In 1989, part of organisation of, and attendant at the largest conference ever held in Lusaka between the African National Congress, led by Oliver Tambo and Thabo Mbeki, and white South African-based organisations. In 1992, co-authored the "Political Environment Survey" with Frederick v. Zyl Slabbert and Mike Olivier. The sculpture "Eugene TerreBlanche and his two side-kicks", owned by the South African National Gallery, was destroyed by a far right-wing group, the AWB.
Brief Political Biography:
Involved from 1983 in Anti-Apartheid South African politics - Honorary member and activist in the Detainee’s Parent's Support Committee (DPSC), up to its political banning in 1988. 1987 Publicity Secretary on the Executive of the anti-apartheid Five Freedoms Forum. In 1989, part of organisation of, and attendant at the largest conference ever held in Lusaka between the African National Congress, led by Oliver Tambo and Thabo Mbeki, and white South African-based organisations. This was before the unbanning of the ANC. In 1992, co-authored the "Political Environment Survey" with Frederick v. Zyl Slabbert and Mike Olivier. The sculpture "Eugene TerreBlanche and his two side-kicks", owned by the South African National Gallery, was destroyed by a far right-wing group, the AWB.
Gail Iris Neke - writer, artist, activist, teacher, academic, ceramicist, partner and mother.
(See both Gail Iris Neke and Gael Neke (previous spelling) on the Internet)
Publishing background: In 1992, just before South Africa became a fully democratic government, Gail co-authored, with Frederick v. Zyl Slabbert and Michael Olivier, The South African Political Environment Survey, an extensively researched prediction of future political, economic, security, business and social trends plus opinions of major political leaders and analysts. Killing the [M]Other by Gail Iris Neke (Bell-Roberts, 2001) is a word and photographic-art exploration of male attitudes to women. Articles on the topic of Masculinity written by Gail have been published in the national and local South African press. Her writing has been included twice in Itch, a national magazine (2004 nos. 1 & 2; Copies of all articles available on request).
Political background: Gail was involved from 1984 to 1994 in Anti-Apartheid organisations. She was an honorary member and activist in the Detainee’s Parent's Support Committee until it was banned by the Apartheid Regime in 1988. From 1986, she also served as Publicity Secretary on the Executive of the anti-Apartheid organisation, the Five Freedoms Forum. In 1989, Gail was part-organiser and attendant at the largest conference ever held in Lusaka, Zambia, between the African National Congress, led by Oliver Tambo and Thabo Mbeki (now President of South Africa) and white South African-based organisations.
Publicity background: In the role of Publicity Secretary, Gail’s function was to write and distribute comment, press releases and critical statements on current political happenings to all local and national print media, radio and TV, answer media questions, organise press conferences, write press articles and letters, keep contact with newspaper editors and journalists and arrange timing and publishing of articles by political leaders and commentators.
Gail has spoken on Masculinities at seminars and workshops held for institutions such as the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation; National Association of Social Workers; Friends of the Johannesburg Gallery; and for groups of final year school students. She was Guest speaker on Women’s Day at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (the National TV and Radio Broadcaster). She has conducted numerous demonstration workshops at the yearly National Conference for Southern African Ceramicists. Gail has been interviewed many times on the theme of masculinities in her visual art exhibitions (Copies of all articles available on request). She has also been interviewed on radio (Paris: May, 1997); Radio 702 (1988, 1989, 1990 on politics).
Academic background: Gail holds a Masters degree (cum laude) on Socio-Political Art in South Africa from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Fine Arts background: Gail is well-known as a contemporary visual artist. She has participated in many solo and group exhibitions both in South Africa and internationally: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Paris, San Francisco, Mexico City, Osaka, Salzburg, Berlin and Birmingham. Busloads of final year school students used Gail’s exhibitions and accompanying workshops, especially at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, as a debating forum for discussion on the topic of men and male attitudes. Before taking up the theme of Masculinities, her work visually protested against the Apartheid Government.
GAIL IRIS NEKE
My work is about rape and violence against women and children in South Africa. Women and children are subjected to an extraordinary level of physical danger, particularly by men that they know. After conducting research at rape clinics and referencing contemporary psychoanalytical texts, I’ve chosen to explore through my visual art the reasons why men rape, rather than the effects on the survivor.
The level of violence and rape in this country, the ‘war against women’ leads me to the conclusion that it is driven by a deep fear and contempt of women. Contempt for all that is ‘female’ is socially-constructed and taught to boys in their early years. In a similar way to racial prejudice, subjugation and violence, women are feared and despised as the ‘other’. My art examines this conclusion.
Not every male is a rapist or a potential abuser. However, in South Africa, many men feel threatened by growing unemployment, lack of opportunity and the increase in women’s rights and expectations. Changes in gender and societal structures, often make men feel weakened, passive and emotional – traits they have been told are feminine and despicable. Their insecurity becomes fear, resentment and anger. The consequence of male insecurity, when linked to contempt for the female, is a continuum of responses ranging from the mildest disparaging comment or sexist joke to violent abuse and murder. Similarly, male bonding frequently constructs women as the outsider ‘enemy’ through which masculinity can be proved. The frequency of gang rapes in South Africa demonstrates this phenomenon. As does the use of rape as a weapon of war.
I look at the perpetrator’s need to conquer his ‘non-masculine’ vulnerability, to control and suppress his own feminine side as well as those who symbolise it– the female sex. Male vulnerability is represented by and projected onto women who are objects of both desire and fear. The insecure man needs to prove his masculinity to himself and to other men. The abuser or rapist does this through women or children who are physically weaker than he is and who society gives him permission to control.
My artwork adopts the position of certain feminist criticism of Freudian and Lacanian theory, emphasising the procreative power of women and the strong dyadic bond between mother and child. Patriarchal society and the father proceed to disrupt that relationship. The male child is taught that he must take up a dominant position in society and that women, and his own feminine characteristics (“Don’t cry like a girl”) are inferior and must be despised and rejected.
The boy is torn between his vulnerability and emotional need for his mother and the imperative to move into social masculinity. He develops a desire/despise split towards his m[other], which turns to resentment and hatred of her power to make him feel vulnerable. These mixed feelings are carried to other interactions with women. Female sexuality, her power of procreation and her primary power over every child have to be countered and controlled by male society through tradition, religion, medicine - and violence.
Men experience a complex mix of longing and revulsion for women. These take on coded forms in a variety of social practices, myths and taboos. I seek to expose some of these codified practices. In Greetings to Freud I challenge the Freudian view that women welcome the use of aggression and force and that masochism is the mature choice of women (Freud, S. 1924 The Economic Problem in Masochism). An image of the father of psychoanalysis is repeated on a transparent film that covers an old ammunition box. It is a traditional portrait of the patriarch, cigar in hand, confident and self-assured. But beneath the image and buried within the confines of the box are small printed tales of rape, horrific stories that are difficult to read.
For the sake of their vulnerable identity, many men continue to demonstrate their ‘masculinity’ to other men and to themselves, through the bodies of women and children. Rape breaches most obviously the body, but also assaults the psyche, not only of the victim but of all women. In our times, with the high incidence of HIV/Aids, rape is also often a death sentence. My visual work is not easy to confront. However, neither is the reality of the violence against women and children.
BRIEF
My current work is about rape and violence against women and children in South Africa. After conducting research at rape clinics and referencing contemporary psychoanalytical texts, I’ve chosen to explore through my visual art the reasons why men rape, rather than the effects on the survivor. Using my art to work with social change organisations, such as NGO’s, has become a new focus of interest.
My work has frequently been initiated by the need to protest the use of violence and the misuse of power. Feminist political issues have increasingly become important themes.
[See further info in CV above.]