An

artistic

unfolding

of

the

complexity

that

is

SA’s

terrible

past

‘Lasting Influences’, a group exhibition at Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, serves as a powerful retrospective, reflecting the gallery’s pivotal role in shaping the local art scene since the 1960s.

The exhibition foregrounds artists including Deborah Bell, Robert Hodgins and William Kentridge, whose early 1990s works cut through political performance with biting satire, exposing the effects of apartheid.

In contrast, the documentary impulse of Sam Nhlengethwa and David Goldblatt captures the harsh physical and social landscapes of the mines. David Koloane, meanwhile, presents quieter, yet equally political work from the 1970s — a reminder that Black artists were not solely confined to depictions of protest and trauma, even though the shadow of apartheid looms large in works like Fighting Dogs.

Modernist dialogues emerge through Edoardo Villa, Walter Battiss and Cecil Skotnes, whose practices echo European art movements. Alongside them, Dumile Feni, Ezrom Legae and Sydney Kumalo reflect an aesthetic rooted in African form and rhythm — an aesthetic that paradoxically shaped the very European modernism against which it is often measured.