INTERVIEW WITH DEREK BAUER 27/7/1988

M.P. When and where were you born?

D.B. In 1955 in East London.

M.P. Where did you go to school?

D.B. To Cambridge until Standard 5. From Standard 6 to matric I went to Tech. I did a technical matric. I did woodwork as a matric subject.

M.P. Have you traveled?

D.B. I've travelled throughout South Africa extensively.

I've been to Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia.

M.P. Where have you lived?

D.B. In East London until I was 21. Then I lived in Pretoria for two years (the SADF). Since then I've lived in Cape

Town.

M.P. when and where did you begin to draw satirical drawings?

D.B. At school.

M.P. How were they received?

D.B. They weren't end products. [They were] sort of drawings of teachers and things to laugh at, at the back of the class.

D.P. Nonetheless how were they received by the people who saw them?

D.B. Very well received.

M.P. What is the extent of your formal training or education?

D.B. I did a three-year graphic design diploma at the East

London Technicon.

M.P. Do you or have you worked in the commercial art sector?

D.B. Yes I worked at De Villiers and Schonfeldt which changed to Younge and Rubicam. I worked there for two years as a lay out artist and a renderer, and eventually as a junior art director. Then I moved to Rightfords I was there for a year as an art director. Then I ran my own sort of advertising design business with my wife who's a writer -for about three and a half years, and then Susan got a commission to write a book which...we were already overtaxed in terms of different functions we performed in order to satisfy a client and when she got this commission it sort of left me out on a limb so I went into partnership with a guy that I had known for quite a long time and had a trial period for three months [but] the partnership never really went through and I was very disillusioned with advertising as a whole in terms of what I was doing. So I was either going to do carpentry or upholstery. I looked around in the carpentry and cabinet making area and I went to see a couple of pro's., and they were just out of my league completely in terms of machinery. You need a lot of capital to start that sort of thing and a lot of experience which I didn't have. So I went into the sort of drawing league.

M.P. Have you taught or do you teach art of any kind ?

D.B. I have taught at the Cape Town Institute of Art for about a year to evening classes - part-time design, graphic design Land] fashion drawing. I'm going to be giving a 15 week course, one night a week at Tech., for three hours a night starting on the 8th August.

M.P. Have you been, or are you involved in community arts projects?

D.B. I don't actually know what you mean by that really. For instance I've done work for Grassroots Educare - book covers, brochure designs, leaflets, little characters, logos but not as such. I got involved in one thing which was the Detainee's Parents Support Committee exhibition.

M .P. Where do you publish your cartoons?

D .B. The first was a magazine called Business which went bankrupt after the first appearance. Then Frontline took some of my stuff. Then the Weekly Mail which was the first newspaper. Then the Argus. Since then I've appeared in Inside South Africa, Excellence which is a sports magazine, StyIe, Art Director, and after that the supplementary in the Sunday Star.

M.P. Have you exhibited your work in group or one-person shows?

D.B. I haven't exhibited my cartoon stuff. I had three exhibitions after I came out of art school, but that's art stuff, fine art stuff. Although I trained at graphic design. I did graphic design because I thought I could learn something from graphic design, whereas they could teach me nothing in fine art. Which is the arrogance of youth isn't it? But it was bourne out that I was right, because they don't actually teach you anything in fine art. They teach you sort of theory, they don't teach you how to mix colours, they don't teach you how to get your own pigments, or how to make brushes, or how to make ink. They don't teach you how to make things or how to glaze, at least they didn't at the art school that I went to. I think if you want to learn to be a painter, you should be able to speak the language. Once you can speak the language then you can break it down, or do what you want to do with it, but you can't have an illiterate writing a book.

M.P. Do you intend exhibiting your cartoons?

D.B. I do, I don't...It's a pure speculation thing. I don't know if they're going to sell or what, but I would like to. From the marketing point of view I think it would increase the sales of the book, increase an awareness of the book, give editors something to write about in their newspapers when this thing comes to town. It's my advertising training coming out in me [Laughs],

M.P. What mater is do you use?

D.B. I use mainly pen and ink with water colour wash, but I like using other materials. The thing is the practicality of the thing in terms of crisp lines, and the reproduction on crap paper and crap layout and all the rest of it - the way that newspapers are put

together, and I've got to give forth the crispest image to start with because it's going to get stuffed up.

M.P. So you do consider that there -is a loss in quality during the transfer from original to published work?

D.B. Yes, I think it's a great sadness...Most of the people can't tell the difference and those who can don't care. It's a terrible thing. I could cry about it but you learn to live with it - you have to.

M.P. When and where do you usually draw?

D.B. I usually draw most of the time because I'm pretty busy. I have regular work which is the Argus, Weekly Mail , Excellence which comes out four times a year, the Sunday Star every two weeks, Laughing Stock is going to appear bi-monthly. There is a lot of regular work and I also do free-lance work for advertising agencies which is like the real bucks - that's where you have some money for a change.

M.P. How long does it usually take you to finish a drawing?

D.B. It varies on the interest I place on the drawing. For instance with the Argus there's a lot of sub-editor interjection, and I hate them for this because they interfere with my work, you know what I mean? Weekly Mail gives me carte blanche; Sunday Star gives me carte blanche. Excellence I can more or less use my own interpretations to illustrate the story - people sort of trust what I'm doing, or they've got me doing it because they like what I'm doing, that's fine I like that. whereas with the Argus 90% of the time they dictate what the cartoon should be; the topic, what should be happening, what should be said, and therefore an Argus cartoon would take me anything from half an hour to two hours, whereas when I started with the Argus it would take me up to eight hours to do a cartoon. I still try to spend double the time on the Weekly Mail than the Argus because I've got carte blanche. I can plant my own idea. It also has an international market.

M.P. What status do you accord the original? How and where is it kept?

D.B. I accord my originals, the good ones, quite a lot of status. I keep them well. I want to exhibit them. I'm putting together a book. I want to have a series of exhibitions with the launching of the book and I want to sell them as art pieces. I'm talking about the good ones, the eight hour ones, the ten hour ones.

M.P. Are most of your drawings the result of direct observation and experience, or are themes sometimes suggested to you, if so by whom?

D.B. I think that when you're dealing with political cartoons, you have to deal with symbols, because you are dealing with a sort of one-liner situation. It has to have an immediate [impact] - people have to know what's going on. So you tend to use things like proverbs or nursery rhymes, known situations, which you twist something around. That doesn't always happen - I think that the inspiration comes from so many places - reality, comic books, other peoples drawings, Guernica, you name it.

M.P. Do you usually work from a pre-conceived idea?

D.B. Yes, on commercial things. You see the thing is if you are in my situation where you have to earn so much money every month in order to survive, or in order to maintain a particular standard of living which you have grown accustomed to, you have to do something. Therefore you have to get the work out. You have to do it like business. You have to sit down, work out an idea. If you have to do it very fast I do a pencil sketch on a small piece of paper, then I redraw it on a bigger sheet of paper. That's if I want to do it fast. If I want to do it slow I don't do any of that. I just do it straight on to the paper. I think those are the best ones because you are concentrating on drawing the lines rather than copying the pencil lines. You actually see what you are drawing rather than drawing what you're seeing. The line is real, it's like a crack in the wall in real life. You're not following the thing, you're actually drawing something one to one, there's no guide lines. Those I love, I love doing that and then sometimes you have to correct it, but I think that also adds to it.

M.P. Do you depict particular persons and circumstances, or do you attempt to portray a broader human condition?

D.B. It depends from job to job really. it's a very broad question. For instance a cartoon strip [can] catch the more [broader] human condition, more I would think than a political cartoon. A political cartoon is a topical thing, and has a specific function in the newspaper. You can't fool yourself that it's anything else, it's sort of support for the leader.

M.P. But for example, if you represent [Minister of Constitutional Development] Chris Heunis, is Heunis Heunis, or is Heunis somebody or something else as well as being Heunie?

D.B. One actually develops a relationship with a certain character completely, and after a while one doesn't use references and you sort of get used to that basis, and you get comfortable with a certain distortion which for you expresses the character of the person. Also I have access to the Argus library, and you can go and look at fifty pictures of Ronald Reagan, and you can actually capture a specific emotion, or a split second of an emotion that the camera can catch that you can work from and can expand on. It can be very subtle, whereas on the other hand one does tend to characterise the person [tape ends].

M.P. How often do you work from photographs?

D.B. I actually have a photographic library of prominent characters that I have collected ever since I started out in newspapers, magazines, etc., because it is impossible to keep them all in your head, but the key South African figures I can still draw from memory, so I don't use photographs for them unless I want to, if I feel like it, if it needs it, if I have a particularly good photograph or particular expression that I know I have in stock that I want to express.

M.P. Do you think cartoons have any advantages over photographs?

D.B. That would be, I think, a very personal thing. Some people prefer photography and some people prefer cartoons. You can express the same sort of things that you do in cartoons in a photograph.

M.P. You don't think you have more freedom in cartooning?

D.B. I don't know. It gives you more freedom and less freedom, because the trouble especially with political cartoons, is that you have to keep on this very simple tight rein of communication - it has to be so understandable all the time. That is a limitation, and it's also the strength actually of the cartoon because you can open the Leader page and the thing you will see first is the cartoon. Because it's immediately available, you don't have to read through the whole column or whatever. I think that is an advantage. I think photography has that as well depending on who the photographer is. Like [David] Goldblatt takes terribly good satirical photographs of people. I don't know if you've ever seen the one of the kids playing at...I think it's one of the dams in the Transvaal, with toy -guns and they're playing like dare devils... excellence' I think there's black neighbours or a maid. The kind of satire in that is very powerful.

M.P. Which cartoonists have affected or - influenced your style or attitude?

D.B. [Ralph] Steadman, [Ronald] SearIe, [Gerald] Scarfe, who else? Herriman. Do you know [Herriman's] Krazy Kat?

The greatest ever '. There are hundreds, waiter King, Pogo, Schultz

M.P. Locally?

D.B. I'm afraid not.

M.P. Would you say any "high" or "fine" art sources have affected your style or attitude?

D.B. Yes, I think so. I think that the sort of angular properties of Picasso...I don't think one can escape Goya really if you're a western art student, because his paintings are like cartoons. I mean I'm talking about cartoon strips now. I'm not talking about "painter", I'm talking about "communicator". I think there is a big difference there. You know the one with the firing squad [Third of May 1808]...it's like a cartoon, no it's not a cartoon - it's a beautiful painting.

M.P. Do you produce painting or sculpture in addition to Cartoons?

D.B. I paint, but I wouldn't call it painting because if I had to count my paintings over the last five years, it's probably two. But I'd love to, I really would like to get into it, also sculpture, but I don't have the time.

M.P. Do you think this work would relate to or differ from your satirical drawings?

D.B. I think it would do both. Depending on the individual piece. Some of it would relate to and some of it would differ substantially.

M.P. Have you produced work in other forms of popular media such as T-Shirts, posters, etc.

D.B. Yes, T-Shirts, and I do poster designs for people when they pay me for it, freelance.

M.P. Are your drawings always accompanied by text?

D.B. Not always.

M.P. Is your emphasis visual or literal or both?

D.B. [Pause] I think my emphasis is visual.

M.P. Do you read or write poetry?

D.B. I used to in my romantic youth, I used to write a lot of poetry, a lot of which I've kept but it's terrible, really terrible.

M.P. Do you write prose?

D.B. Yes, I've written a book actually, but I don't think it's very good. I don't think I'm a writer. I think some of the ideas in there are quite nice, and some parts of it quite funny, but I don't consider myself a writer, but I do write. But obviously when you're writing a cartoon strip, you have to write the story before you can even start, because you can't start, you can start, but then you find you fall into traps which you could have avoided if you wrote the skeleton flow of ideas, the breaks or where you are going to put in the punch line, that kind of thing, or how you're going to open each time. You have to actually work it out. You have to write a script.

M.P. Is humour a necessary constituent of your work?

D.B. Not always. It depends on the cartoon. Sometimes it's humorous, sometimes it's satirical, sometimes it's horrific.

M.P. Do you consider yourself to be a serious person?

D.B. At times. I think in the long term, yes I'm a serious person, but I think in the short term I try not to take myself too seriously, but it's difficult. It's a trap that we all fall into very often.

M.P. Do you read comics?

D.B. Yes, I actually grew up on comics. Comics and radio. I read comics in the course of my work but I haven't actually sat down and read comics for quite a while now.

M.P. Do you read newspapers?

D.B. Yes, I read newspapers all the time. The Weekly Mail, South, Cape Times, Argus, and I read magazines. I try to read the Spectator, and occasionally a very good British right-wing article.

M.P. Do you read novels?

D.B. Occasionally. I don't really have time. I really do work all the time. And when I'm not working I'm looking after Harry. Sue and I share Harry, we don't have a maid. He's going on for three, so it's sort of nursemaiding and working

M.P. Do you read non-fiction?

D.B. Yes. I actually read more non-fiction than fiction. I read things like Barbara Touchman for instance, which is more like historical .. . factual story form. I find History fascinating. I'm not really a novel reader. I'd rather read a book on History or practical woodworking. Something that you can learn something from, although my wife would shoot me down for saying so. But she's a literary person and I'm not. I'm more a practical "hands" person.

M.P. Do you read any academic journals?

D.B. Like what? [Laughs]

M.P. Do you read or look at art books?

D.B. Yes, all the time. Especially in book shops. I get caught in book shops for hours and hours on end when I'm not supposed to be there. I'm supposed to be somewhere else.

M.P. Do you read political theory?

D.B. Occasionally. I mean there's so much political theory bandied about in this country - it's like blog, blog, blog...I'm saying some dangerous things here ' [laughs]. I mean I've read bits and pieces from here and here but not really. I'm very much more interested in the overall world political view than the peculiar South African. I think [South Africa] is one little piece. I know it sounds crass living here and saying that, but I actually believe it. I think there's so much shit flying around. For instance a particular story which really sickened me the other day - I heard that Sweden has a major arms exporting business and these are the same people who fund peace projects, and yet they are arms manufacturers. I mean it's so weird one can't figure it out.

M.P. So it's when you read things like this that you start to work on ideas?

D.B. well, that makes me a serious person, watching a video on Mother Theresa and what she's doing compared to what I'm doing makes me feel like such a slug. Although I don't think that I have the capacity of being that sort of person. But that's what makes me a serious person, but I'm a bit more frivolous than that.

M.P. What is the effect of censorship on your work?

D.B. Well the Argus is complete. Obviously one censors oneself- I don't want to drop the Weekly Mail in the shit. I think one censors oneself. One tries to push it s far as possible. Sometimes you don't know. Sometimes it gets to the Weekly Mail and the say "Look you're going to have to change that line", and they change it.

M.P. Which of your work has been censored or banned?

D.B. When they "first declared the Emergency one was completely banned or restricted. Certain attacks on the left have been censored by the Weekly Mail because it's not their line. It's sort of being naughty, the cartoonist being the naughty boy, can't criticize left in left-wing newspaper, which is a bit sick too, anyway...

MP . How much harassment do you get from people who are antagonistic to your cartoons?

D.B. None. I've never been harassed. I had one telephone call from an irate Rhodesian, pertaining to a cartoon I did on the Sealous Scout guy who got kicked out of the Transkei. He told me that I did not really understand the situation and how sensitive the whole thing was. That's the only occasion.

M.P. What would you say are the social and ethical constraints towards being a cartoonist? Or put another way, to what or whom do you consider yourself responsible or accountable to?

D.B. This is a question that was asked at the [Weekly Mail] "Book week", of the writers responsibility to the constituency, and I think that the whole question is sick because an artist only has a responsibility to his subject and to himself. Fuck the constituencies, fuck the political parties, fuck the political persuasions, fuck the mood of the day. You only have responsibility to your art-work, to your subject, to yourself. If it's anything else it then it stops being art. It becomes propaganda or advertising.

M.P. Can you make a living in South Africa producing political and social satire?

D.B. Yes, you can. You have to be quite dedicated. I think you have to be prepared to work hard, and to eat a lot of shit until you get established.

M.P. Do you consider that you could make a living as an artist/artist in another country?

D.B. Yes, I think so. I think that they would probably pay a lot better, and you'd also get paid in real money instead of in "monopoly" money.

M.P. If you were to leave this country for a substantial period of time, in what ways if any, would you anticipate a change in your subject matter or approach?

D.B. I think that obviously the subject matter would change because the majority of the stuff that I do is concerning South Africa. So subject matter would change and I think that the emphasis is different say, in England as opposed to America, as opposed to Australia, in terms of what you would be doing if you were doing political cartooning. Have I answered your question?

M.P. But do you think you would still be focussing on political characters? I mean if you're drawing [Margaret] Thatcher it's not that much different from drawing. . . CD ,B . interjects]

D.B. Thatcher here, except that when you draw Thatcher here you draw it very crude - there's no finesse to the politics, when you draw [P.W.] Botha here you can put finesse to the politics because more people understand the situation, when you're in England you'd draw Botha crude and Thatcher with much more subtlety to the idea, of what she's doing, or what she's saying. Because I think you have to work within the public awareness. This is what the deputy editor of the Argus keeps telling me because you are selling the newspaper to blue collar workers. They don't understand what you're saying, they don't see it simple, honest, straight -forward.

M.P. I must be honest, I did not understand your last cartoon in the Weekly Mail.

D.B. Which was?

M.P. I think Stoffel Botha writing an "A", and somebody dictating . . .

D.B. No, no, no, that was [George] Dukakis and [Jesse]

Jackson writing "Do not feed the animals" on the fence, and inside the fence was P.W, [Botha] as a crocodile, "die groot krokodil"...did you not get it?

M.P. I thought it might be P.W. as the crocodile, but I didn't actually recognize Dukakis. I said to somebody "who's this? And they said it's Stoffel Botha.

D.B. Now there's an example for you. Dukakis is not well known visually in this country for people to recognize him. I can tell you that if I showed you the photograph that I worked from you'd see immediately. You see that's the problem you have to deal with all the time.

M.P. Do you have a resistance to actually writing "Dukakis"?

D.B. I do. It's like admitting defeat. It's like "I'm not communicating", it's like "I can't write this paragraph, therefore I'm going to draw a picture to explain what I mean". In a novel that would be ridiculous, whereas "I'm drawing this picture, but in case you don't know what I mean I'm going to write this paragraph". I think you're wasting your time if you're not communicating, rather throw it away. I'd rather communicate visually, but obviously in the entanglement of the Argus and the weird, and half-baked and weak concepts that one has to portray, one uses these labels and tags and ties [tape ends].

M.P. The following terms could be used to describe you or your work. How do you feel about the following terms: cartoonist?

D.B. Sure,

M.P. Artist?

D.B. Yes I think sometimes I get there. I don't think it's great, but I'm very young and I'm still working at it [laughs]. I think that Occasionally something that I draw does excite me, inspires me. Then I think you can call it art. It goes a bit beyond the political cartoon.

M.P. Satirist?

D.B. Sometimes it's applicable.

M.P. Political cartoonist?

D.B. Could be applicable.

M.P. Social commentator?

D.B. Also could be applicable.

M.P. Cultural worker?

D.B. I don't think so. It's a bit vague.

M.P. Political activist?

D.B. No, I'm not a political activist.

M.P. Media terrorist?

D.B. [Laughs] Well I don't know. You see there's a beautiful truth in anarchy. In the overthrowing of the serious, the seriousness of things. That kind of terrorism I can use, but I'm not into blowing people up. I'm not into violence on either side.

M.P. Yet it could be said that a lot of your cartoons are extremely violent.

D.B. No, they're not violent, they express violence. But how can a cartoon be violent? It's an inanimate object [laughs]. I mean it's a horrific world that we live in. I mean children get burnt with cigarette ends and put into microwave ovens. It's that kind of world that we live in. when I draw violence in a cartoon I'm not pro -violence. I'm expressing horror, that kind of thing.

M.P. Have you ever had any allegations of racism concerning any of your work?

D.B. Apparently one of the ANC guys asked Anton Harber in London why [the Weekly Mail] put that ugly picture of [Oliver] Tambo in the paper. And also when Samora Machel died, I did a very, very gentle caricature of Samora Machel superimposed over a cross with "Rest in Peace" over it. There was a letter in the Weekly Mail saying I was a racist and all that sort of thing. But I think that's over reaction. Because I think that if this country was controlled by a minority of blacks and I drew P.W. Botha like I draw P.W. Botha, wouldn't people call me racist?

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