Chapter 2, Art and Justice in Times of Transition, sets out the theoretical framework for the book. By undertaking a close visual analysis and narrative investigation of one artwork – REwind by Gerhard Marx, Maja Marx and Philip Miller – that addresses the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I unpack four ideas which make art exigent and meaningful to transitional justice, and vice versa. These ideas are about the circulation of political sentiment, the mediation of political agency, the invitation of political encounters, and the invention of political space.I argue that an account of transitional justice without aesthetic dimensions – especially art – is insufficient. Art plays an important role in animating and activating the narratives of individuals so that they take on collective importance. In so doing, the past can be shared so that a new political future can be imagined. Artistic production becomes a radical form of political participation in times of political transition. The chapter concludes with an afterword on power, ethics, and modes of display.

Chapter 9, The Art of Representation, explores the exhibition Imaginary Fact in the 2013 South Africa Pavilion at the International Art Biennale in Venice. Three key narratives about violence emerge from this exhibition: the unresolved violence of apartheid-era crimes; the structural violence of pervasive practices of discrimination; and, the physical violence which people continue to be subjected.I anaylse three artworks which epitomise each narrative: David Kolane’s The Journey, Sue Williamson’s For Thirty Years Next to His Heart, and Zanele Muholi’s Faces and Phases.I argue that these three narratives are important actions in South Africa’s transition because they warn against the repetition of violence, document the structures of violence, and expose continuing practices of violence in the ‘new’ South Africa.

The book begins with a short introduction to the broad problems and key questions which shape the enquiry. Namely, that an holistic perspective of transitional justice should include legal, social, and cultural measures, within which visual art has an important role. I identify the tendency in transitional justice scholarship which addresses the arts to privilege civil society arts initiatives over state-sponsored ones and to focus on the performing arts over visual art – two gaps which the book begins to fill. I then outline the two-part case study of post-apartheid South African visual art across important national and international institutions, the Constitutional Court of South Arica and the South African Pavilion at the International Art Biennale in Venice. The introduction concludes with a breakdown of the individual chapters and the arguments presented.

Chapter 7, From Banned to Embraced, provides an historical overview of South Africa’s relationship to the International Art Biennale in Venice.In 1968, protests at the Biennale changed how it took place. These changes included banning South Africa from exhibiting: a boycott of the apartheid regime. It was not until 1993, with the prospect of transition from apartheid to democracy, that South Africa was invited back to the Biennale.Through this invitation to exhibit at the Biennale, South Africa was being rewarded for political change.The chapter analyses correspondence between representatives of South Africa and the Biennale in order to chronicle the country’s appearances in the exposition between 1968 and 2013, and to reveal the complex national and international politics and diplomatic negotiations involved in becoming and remaining a member state of the Biennale. I argue that South Africa’s participation continues to be deeply affected by international and national politics; its long absence from the Biennale reverberates through the way in which it represents itself to the international community and establishes itself as a member state of this international organisation.

Chapter 8, Mapping Political Art-Scapes, examines the geo-politics of the International Art Biennale in Venice.It begins by mapping how the Biennale transforms the local city space of Venice into a global art-scape.The Giardini and the Arsenale house the majority of the 85 national pavilions – established member states own art embassies in the Giardini while probationary member states rent exhibition spaces in the Arsenale. Pavilions become proxies through which states present an image of themselves to the international community. I contrast South Africa’s 2013 national pavilion with that of the United Arab Emirates (the two states shared an exhibition space in the Arsenale) in order to show how comparisons between states are forced upon them by virtue of exhibiting in the Biennale. I argue that these art-scapes provide fertile ground for states to offer an image of themselves – images which are not necessarily perceived how states intend.

Chapter 10, The Cultural Diplomacy of Imaginary Fact, theorises the exhibition in the 2013 South Africa Pavilion at the International Art Biennale in Venice as a unique instance of cultural diplomacy. Imaginary Fact plays a paradoxical role in the process of nation building because it presents a dual image of a nation struggling with ongoing internal complexities, while projecting a collective narrative of a state that has undergone a difficult transition and come out the other side to re-assert itself in the international community.By examining South Africa’s conception of cultural diplomacy presented in government white papers, I show how the official image of South Africa as a global competitor (a transitioned nation) sits uncomfortably with the artists’ image of South Africa as a transitioning nation circumscribed by ongoing challenges to human rights.I argue that this establishes a glocal (global–local) image of the state which is in tension with South Africa’s foreign policy agenda.

The conclusion outlines the key implications and contributions of the book. Art is a radical form of political participation in times of transition.In South Africa visual art creates new critical spaces of political recognition and representation.Art is embedded in creative state-building, both internally and externally.The state uses visual art from the inside out to reconceptualise the South African justice system, and from the outside in to re-engage the international community with the South African state.The conclusion also addresses two potential criticisms facing the book, namely that what is discussed does not count as transitional justice and whether art really matters in post-conflict settings in the face of urgent human need.