Exhibition of the week South Africa: The Art of a Nation

British Museum, London WC1 (020-7323 8181, www.britishmuseum.org). Until 26 February 2017

Some of the earliest examples of decorative art ever discovered have been unearthed in what is today South Africa, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. As such, the nation “can and does claim to be where art was born”. Now, a new exhibition at the British Museum aims to chart the history and culture of South Africa, from the dawn of man to the violence of apartheid, and beyond. The show encompasses a vast range of works, from a pebble resembling a human face found in a prehistoric human grave, to Zulu spears from the Battle of Isandlwana (where the British were wiped out), to contemporary video art. All this could so easily come across as “glib”, but it is presented in a “thoughtful and illuminating” way that makes the show “as stirring as South Africa itself”. A particular highlight is the slab of rock known as the Zaamenkomst Panel, on which San hunter-gatherers from the Kalahari painted antelope with “infinite subtlety”. It “ranks with the greatest cave paintings of Ice Age France”.

“There are some stunning objects here,” said Eddy Frankel in Time Out. The so-called Kenilworth Head, a mysterious stone bust discovered by labourers in Kimberley in 1900, is “shockingly lifelike”, while the precolonial Mapungubwe gold sculpture of a rhinoceros is simply “stunning”. Each of the sub-themes here – precolonial art, apartheid art, contemporary art – would make a fine exhibition in their own right, but therein lies the problem. The show’s focus is “stupidly broad”, offering a “tiny bit of everything” and a “whole lot of problems”. We see a “simplified” picture of South Africa that barely “scratches the surface” of this most diverse country’s history, and ends up “infuriatingly wide of the mark”. With this exhibition, the British Museum has set itself “an impossible task – and failed”.

The idea is that contemporary artworks are scattered among older exhibits, “commenting” on them, said Ben Luke in the London Evening Standard. This results in some misfires, with superficial conceptual art next to sublime rock art; but also some “clever play-offs between past and present”. For instance, John Muafangejo’s “fresh” 1981 linoprint of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift shows “feeble” British invaders “righteously menaced” by fearsome Zulu warriors. The show’s real fascination, though, comes from the historical artefacts and works of art, such as the “magnificent” patterned plate made by an inmate of a British concentration camp during the Boer War. This is an exhibition that tells a “powerful” story about South Africa.