Francesca Villette
FOR centuries the home has been the place where we perform our daily rituals.
It is where children learn to take their first steps and are nurtured.
It is where couples cook, quarrel and make love.
But the home is also where people may feel trapped. For centuries, the home has also been the scene of crimes, and where outrageous violence is routinely perpetrated.
Showcasing these different scenes is Home Truth: Domestic Interiors in South Africa, a new exhibition at the Iziko South African National Gallery.
Curated by Emeritus Professor Michael Godby, it features paintings and photographs from 17th century South Africa until today, as well as 17th century Dutch, 19th and 20th century French and English art, and 20th and 21st century South African art and photo-graphy.
“The title is a pun: home truth on the one hand means telling the uncomfortable truth that is close to home. On the other hand, it also means the truth that is home. We all live in houses, and we all express ourselves through where we live: the way we design our houses, and what we put in them. The exhibition is about how people live, and what they make of their domestic spaces,” Godby said.
The exhibition opened yesterday and will run until October. It is grouped into four parts: Interior Worlds, which expresses owners’ identities; Behind Closed Doors, the spaces that afford privacy for private feelings and private deeds; The World Outside, that defines the nature of the interior space through contrast, and represents both a threat to that space but also the possibility of an escape from it; and Inside Out in which the symbolic potential of the domestic interior is explored. It also features a selection of paintings and photographs of women.