Art, A Magical Motor That Keeps Society Together

In 2019 when I curated the exhibition, A Black Aesthetic, which was centered on the Fort Hare University Art collection comprising works by Black South African artists, there were three works by Charles Nkosi included in the exhibition. One of his works titled Soweto at Dawn, 1979 was originally featured on the cover of the publication, Images of Man: South African Black Art and Artists by EJ De Jager (1992), one of the few publications which feature the works from the collection. This work has become iconic in not only how it depicted the township landscape but also how in its imagining of the township there is an implied subversion of the representation of what a township is, both ideologically as well as pictorially. In some sense the work personifies the artist who created it in both its character as well as its metaphorical and literal meaning.

- Dr Same Ndluli