Let Sleeping Dogs Lie: Visual Expressions of Burial As Loss Of Teleology
In: Apocalypse: Imagining the EndSearch for other papers by Elfriede Dreyer in
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Although classical utopian models professed dogmatic but clear nation-state designs with the purpose of resulting in good Endings, more often than not history has shown that political regimes and utopian leadership models function in non-transparent manner, deliberately propositioning that it is for the good of the nation. In this paper, it is argued that burial imagery suggesting layered histories of secrets and concealed realities is antidotal to the construction of utopian ideologies and expresses a dystopian sense of loss of teleology. The depiction of burial in selected works of the South African artists Carolyn Parton and Colleen Alborough is explored within the context of the expression of apocalypse in early and recent works of the German artist Anselm Kiefer. Burial is interpreted as indicative of an ongoing search for meaningful Ending, in this case propelled by the discovery of unspeakable terrors which lie beneath the surface of identity construction. The artists’ espousal of burial in the representation, construction and installation of ravished planes and surfaces both render sites of traumatic memory and the raw, virginal soil of potentiality and recovery. These are interpreted as speaking about reclamation, the (un)fulfilment of destinies and, most importantly ‘spent’ ideologies. Paint, paper and found materials, applied as physical matter, become environmental and social strata in the expression of post-apocalypse in late twentieth-century deconstruction of Besetzung and contemporary expressions of South African post-colonial dystopia.