Always on the periphery of the Brücke movement, the South African-German artist Irma Stern is an intriguing but complex figure. Having faced antisemitism and censorship under the National Socialists, the Jewish artist nonetheless embodies many of the colonial and racial prejudices of her time. Her Neo-Expressionist portraits of Black women from South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda are depersonalised and unpleasantly ethnographic.
One painting of Queen Gicanda Rudahigwa is titled ‘Watussi Queen’ (1943), despite Stern clearly knowing her actual name. Such attitudes were not unusual for the era, but it’s still hard to see past. Complicating matters further, Stern profited handsomely from her “authentic” depictions; her shows regularly sold out, and she enjoyed prominence as one of South Africa’s most successful post-war artists.
The exhibition navigates these undercurrents well, using academics and contemporary artists like the queer black artist Athi-Patra Ruga to respond to her work with extensive wall texts and contemporary paintings that challenge colonial views of the time. The exhibition is perhaps most successful in highlighting the ambivalences of the artist, who considered herself highly progressive for even choosing to depict African subjects in the first place.
The result is that her often beautifully painted figures, with their extraordinarily deadpan expressions, can only really be viewed as artefacts from apartheid. The woman in ‘Maid In Uniform’ (1955), with her eyes askant, refuses to look back at the painter. It gives you the impression that Stern was only interested in her subjects for her own benefit. Such dichotomies are at the heart of the exhibition, making for a compelling, though uncomfortable, experience.
- Irma Stern. A Modern Artist between Berlin and Cape Town, Brücke Museum, Dahlem. Closes Nov 2, details.
