Personal Affects: Power and Poetics in Contemporary South African Art presents newly commissioned and recently produced works of 17 artists working in diverse media, including sculpture, drawing, photography, painting, installation, video, performance, and dance.

The artworks represent artists' responses to a week-long stay in New York and visits with the international team of curators. The common thread throughout the exhibition is the highly personal point of departure of their working methods, informed by their varied experiences as South Africans.

Participating artists include Jane Alexander, Wim Botha, Steven Cohen, Churchill Madikida, Thando Mama, Mustafa Maluka, Jay Pather, Johannes Phokela, Robin Rhode, Claudette Schreuders, Berni Searle, Doreen Southwood, Samson Mudzunga, Clive van den Berg, Minnette Vari, Diane Victor and Sandile Zulu. Exhibition catalogue with Introduction by curators David Brodie, Laurie Ann Farrell, Churchill Madikida, Sophie Perryer, and Liese van der Watt, and essays: The Enigma of the Rainbow Nation: Contemporary South African Art at the Crossroads of History by Okwui Enwezor, Towards an 'Adversarial Aesthetics': A Personal Response to Personal Affects by Liese van der Watt, and artist interviews by Tracy Murinik.

Published by the Museum for African Art, New York and Spier, Cape Town. September 2004. 176 pp.

Paper: ISBN 0-945802-42-0. LCCN: 2004111256.