Notes

Japanese people were classified as "non-white" under apartheid law.  At the beginning of the 1960s a Japanese jockey was excluded from riding at a major South African race meeting on grounds of racial classification.  This incident caused an international outcry and consequently raised concerns in the apartheid government regarding the potential economic consequences for their trading relationship with Japan, particularly the lucrative exports of steel and coal.¹

In 1962 the South African Minister of the Interior announced that Japanese people who were predominantly employees of large Japanese businesses, would not be classified as a separate group in terms of the Population Registration Act but would fall under the heading of "Other Asiatics" because of their small numbers.  For the purposes of this Act they would be treated as "whites", and would have access to areas and premises reserved for "whites".  They were popularly referred to as "honorary whites".  Chinese people and other Asian groups continued to be classified as "non-white".²

Jane Alexander 'Notes on Selected Artworks'.  In Jane Alexander: DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Sculpture 2002.  Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern-Ruit, 2002, p119.

^{1 Information supplied by Barry Streek, parliamentary and political journalist for Mail & Guardian (personal interview, 6/3/2002).}

^{2 Laws Affecting Race Relations in South Africa 1948-1976, Status of Chinese and Japanese People; compiled by Muriel Horrell, South African Institute of Race Relations, 1978, p 169.}

Provenance

Die Kunskamer, 2002

Exhibited

Jane Alexander. Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town. July, 1999

Sharing Exoticisms. Curated by Jean-Hubert Martin for the Fifth Biennale of Contemporary Art, Lyons, France. September, 2000

Jane Alexander: DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Sculpture 2002. South African National Gallery, Cape Town, April-July 2003

Literature

Lucy Alexander, "Bom Boys" and "Lucky Girls", UCT Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, 1999

Paul Edmunds 'Jane Alexander at the Irma Stern Museum'. In Artthrob http://www.arthrob.co.za/99july/listings.htm

'Fifth Biennale of Contemporary Art in Lyons'. In Artthrob http://www.artthrob.co.za/00aug/listings-intl.html

Jane Alexander: DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Sculpture 2002. Hatje Cantz Verlag, Germany, 2002, illustrated in colour p71, p119 & 124