How to represent the horror without re-inscribing it?
After seeing ISIS propaganda footage of gay men thrown from rooftops in Syria and Iraq and then publicly stoned, Clive van den Berg needed to “make good” these violated lives.
In A Pile of Stones, van den Berg exercises this reparative impulse, composing a body of work that protests against the actions of ISIS by “inverting the gaze” from voyeuristic propaganda, whose intention is to paralyse the viewer, to an empathetic and responsible act of looking.
His vision: to commemorate the lives of nameless men who are “wiped” from the ISIS regime for exhibiting the “wrong” kind of masculinity and to attribute dignity to these “ungrieveable” victims whose relations, friends and lovers cannot mourn them without implicating themselves.
Van den Berg’s solo exhibition straddles two central desires: to “carve out” a language of grieving in an increasingly intolerant global context where nonconformist masculinities are under threat, and to represent the horror of the ISIS killings – to re-construe the mechanics of the gaze – without re-inscribing the violation.
At the same time, van den Berg highlights rare moments of reluctance in the crowd, interpreting them as possible silent protests.
Van den Berg reads the complicity with ISIS brutalist masculinity as a cloak of personal protection not to be judged, but to be understood within a repressive context. In these carefully “re-enacted” pieces, he asks: “In a society of coercive masculinity, is picking up the first stone an act of protection for some people?”
The centrepiece of the show, A Pile of Stones, is an intricate three-metre-high hand-carved wood sculpture that pays tribute to these faceless victims and demonstrates the scope and depth of the artist’s “redemptive gaze”.
By engaging with the ongoing violence towards gay men in Syria and Iraq, van den Berg narrows his gaze to an extreme version of the homophobic intolerance that increasingly pervades societies across the globe.
In South Africa where alternative masculinities remain repressed, this exhibition addresses the need for a nuanced conversation on gender and sexuality. “Race is rightly the dominant narrative”, he says, “but there are additional prisms through which we can understand who we are and what we need to do to become a caring and responsible society.”
Van den Berg’s exhibition is a call to sharpen our gaze to recognise and value, rather than repress and disguise, the “masculine other”.
Artwork
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Artist Bio
Clive van den Berg (b. 1956, Luanshya, Zambia) is a Johannesburg-based artist, curator and designer who has focused on pioneering the insertion of queer perspectives into the larger rewrite of South African history throughout the course of his prolific forty-year career. Van den Berg has produced a range of works spanning a variety of mediums delve into the porous nature of human existence and the landscapes we inhabit, creating a profound commentary on vulnerability, memory, and the intersection of personal and collective histories.
Van den Berg’s retrospective, titled Porous, took place at the Wits Art Museum in August 2024, and was accompanied by a major new book published by Skira.
In his paintings, he delves into the porous nature of land, acting as a vessel for lived experiences and unearthing unresolved layers beneath its surface. Within Van den Berg’s practice, the landscapes serve as a departure point, transcending physicality to evoke a haunting absence that guide viewers through imagined topographies. Van den Berg's sculptural practice is equally captivating, focusing on the male form and the symbolic resonance of skin to explore themes of vulnerability and exposure. Through this vulnerability, he challenges traditional notions of masculinity and brings to light the ever-present spectre of mortality. His work serves as a poignant meditation on love, loss, and resilience.
His public projects have included the artworks for landmark Northern Cape Legislature and, since he has joined the trace team, museum projects for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Constitution Hill, Freedom Park, the Workers Museum, The Holocaust and Genocide Centre and many other projects.
Solo exhibitions include: 'Porous,' Wits Art Museum (2024); 'Remembering, a survey exhibition of paintings, prints and sculptures,' Kwa-Zulu Natal Society of Art Gallery, Durban (2021); 'Personal Affects, Museum of African Art,' New York (2005).
Major curated exhibitions include: 'If You Look Hard Enough, You Can See Our Future: Selections of Contemporary South African Art from the Nando’s Art Collection,' The African American Museum of Dallas, Dallas (2023); 'Breaking Down the Walls: 150 years of Art Collecting,' Iziko SANG, Cape Town (2023); 'Screening of Memorials Without Facts: Men Loving,' São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo (2018); 'Earth Matters: Lands as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa,' Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington D.C. (2013-2014).
Collections include: El Espacio 23, Miami; Amant Foundation, New York; A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town; Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg; Spier Arts Trust, London; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Smithsonian Museum of African Art, Washington DC and Video Brasil, Sao Paulo.
Van den Berg lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.
