In the three decades following the democratic transition of 1994, South African visual culture has frequently been analysed through the lens of trauma and the monumental task of nation building. However, Raél Jero Salley’s The Visual Dynamics of Art, Black Care, and Ethics in South African Art proposes a vital shift in this interpretive paradigm. Rather than viewing contemporary art merely as a reaction against the violence of the past, Salley introduces the framework of ‘looking after freedom’. This polysemous concept serves as the book’s theoretical anchor, referring simultaneously to the chronological condition of looking after the apartheid era and the ethical imperative of caring for the fragility of that newly won freedom (p. 4). By intertwining art criticism with the ethics of care, Salley argues that contemporary art practices are not passive reflections of society but active agents in reshaping social relations.

Salley’s substantive chapters offer a rigorous tripartite analysis of artistic practice. First, he explores ‘archival care’ through Zanele Muholi’s Faces and Phases, arguing that her indexical records preserve Black queer history (p. 70). Second, he examines how ‘counter-visuality’ and ‘fictional truths’ in the works of the Essop brothers and Kemang Wa Lehulere repair collective memories damaged by colonial governance (p. 119). Third, Salley frames art as a ‘relational transaction’ through the ‘suturing performances’ of Gerald Machona and others, where the body contests post-apartheid boundaries (p. 158). Drawing on W. J. T. Mitchell, he emphasizes that these artworks are living entities soliciting active ethical engagement rather than passive observation.

The primary strength of this work lies in its profound originality, constructing a dialogue between ‘Black care’ and visual ethics specifically within the post-apartheid South African context. Salley moves beyond simple political or aesthetic readings to capture how art, as a ‘living entity’, participates in the reconstruction of the social fabric. This ‘looking after freedom’ framework provides a powerful decolonial tool for parsing complex social differences in South Africa. It convincingly demonstrates that visual practices are indispensable in healing historical wounds and rebuilding ethical connections, significantly broadening the horizons of African art history.

However, the book is not without its limitations. First, while the book’s theoretical reach is ambitious, it is also the source of a primary defect: a density of argumentation that occasionally obscures the art it seeks to illuminate. Salley relies heavily on a canon of high theory, spanning Sylvia Wynter and Fred Moten, to construct his framework of ‘Black care’. While intellectually robust, this heavy theoretical scaffolding sometimes suffocates the visceral immediacy of the artworks. The reader is often left wading through thickets of ontological abstraction to reach the material reality of the photograph or performance, risking the reduction of art to mere theoretical illustration.

Second, the text is surprisingly reticent regarding the material and economic conditions of the global art world in which these artists operate. While Salley acknowledges the ‘global production of contemporary art’, he stops short of a critical interrogation of how the ‘Black care’ he champions is commodified within a neoliberal art economy. Many of the artists discussed – Muholi and Modisekeng in particular – are superstars of the global biennial circuit. A more incisive critique would have examined how the performance of ‘care’ and ‘healing’ is packaged for consumption by Western institutions. By neglecting the political economy of the art market, the book misses an opportunity to explore the tension between the radical ‘ungovernability’ of Black performance and its institutional capture.

Furthermore, the application of ‘care ethics’ as a master signifier occasionally feels overextended, risking a depoliticization of the sharper edges of the art. Salley positions these practices as counternarratives to what Achille Mbembe describes as ‘necropolitics’ – sovereignty’s power to dictate who may live and who must die. While Salley argues that these artists perform acts of ‘living’ that render Black life visible beyond the grammar of suffering (p. 6), this framework sometimes smooths over the profound rage and refusal that also characterize the post-apartheid condition. By framing resistance primarily through the lens of ‘care’, the book potentially underplays the moments when these artworks seek not to heal the social fabric, but to tear it open.

Despite these critiques, The Visual Dynamics of Art, Black Care, and Ethics in South African Art represents a significant intervention in the field. It successfully shifts the discourse from historical trauma to a forward-looking exploration of relationality. This book will be of immense value to scholars of art history and African studies, challenging them not just to analyse art, but to engage in the difficult work of caring for the futures it imagines.