1,720,988 research outputs found
Writing white on black : modernism as discursive paradigm in South African writing on modern Black art
Full text linkThesis (PhD (Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006.In this thesis I deconstruct key concepts, terminologies, and rhetorical conventions employed in white South
African writing on modern black art. I trace the genealogy of the dominant discursive practices of the
apartheid era to the cultural discourses of the colonial era, which in turn had their origins in the
Enlightenment. This genealogical tracing aims to demonstrate that South African art writing of the 20th
century partook of a tradition of Western writing that was primarily intent upon producing the Western
subject as a rational Enlightenment agent via the debased objectification of the colonial Other. In the
process of the deconstruction, I identify the most significant discursive shifts that occurred from the 1930’s,
when the first publications emerged, to the 1990’s, when South Africa’s new political dispensation opened
up a different cultural landscape.Doctora
Listening to distant thunder : the art of Peter Clarke
Full text linkCITATION: Van Robbroeck, L. 2012. Listening to distant thunder : the art of Peter Clarke. South African Journal of Science, 108(5/6), Art. #1246, doi:10.4102/sajs.v108i5/6.1246.The original publication is available at http://sajs.co.za[No abstract available]Publisher's versio
A play of signifiers : absence and presence in the picturebooks of Shaun Tan
Full text linkThesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2013.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis is an exploratory study into the signification potential of contemporary,
postmodern picturebooks, specifically focusing on the way in which a seemingly
'simplistic' medium has the potential to initiate a vastly complex play of meanings.
Picturebooks are traditionally considered to be a medium which implies a child reader,
and conveys a simple linear narrative for educational and entertainment purposes.
Traditional picturebooks thus assume a clear division between an author and reader,
whereby the author is a 'knowing' adult, who conveys a moral or message to a passive
child reader. These assumptions are arguably unsettled by the appearance of postmodern
picturebooks, broadly defined as a medium which, while retaining the traditional
picturebook format, opens itself up to multiple interpretations, instead of presenting the
reader with an encoded message or 'meaning'. A number of postmodern picturebook
authors, such as Shaun Tan, intentionally subvert the traditional dynamic between the
author and reader of picturebooks by creating complex texts which display a general
absence of clear accessible 'meaning', thereby allowing the reader to actively participate
in the meaning-making process. With aid of the theories of signification set out by
poststructuralist Jacques Derrida, this study aims to illustrate how a purposeful absence
of apparent 'meaning' in picturebooks has the potential to allow for unlimited
interpretations of a single text, thus by extension widening the 'implied' audience of such
picturebooks. The objective is to set postmodern picturebooks apart from other texts (in
particular more traditional picturebooks), and to provide a new outlook on the ways
picturebooks are created, and the way they are read.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis is 'n ondersoekende studie na die betekenispotensiaal van kontemporêre,
post-moderne prenteboeke, met spesiale verwysing na die manier waarop 'n
sogenaamde “simplistiese” medium die potensiaal openbaar om 'n hoogs-komplekse
verskeidenheid betekenisse te ontlok. Prenteboeke word tradisioneel gesien as 'n
medium van eenvoudige, liniêre vertellings gerig op die jong leser met die doel om op te
voed of te vermaak. Tradisionele prenteboeke handhaaf dus 'n duidelike afbakening
tussen die leser en die outeur, die sogenaamde “alwetende” volwassene, wat 'n morele les/
boodskap aan 'n passiewe, jong leser oordra. Hierdie veronderstelling word egter
omvergewerp deur die verskyning van die post-moderne prenteboek wat, alhoewel in die
tradisionele formaat van die prenteboek gegiet, die leser die geleentheid bied om
veelvoudige interpretasies te maak in plaas van om net die beoogde geënkodeerde
betekenis of boodskap van die boek te aanvaar. 'n Aantal post-moderne
prenteboekskrywers soos Shaun Tan het die tradisionele dinamiek tussen
prenteboekskrywer en -leser bewustelik omver kom werp deur komplekse teks te skep
wat gekenmerk word aan die afwesigheid van 'n duidelik waarneembare betekenis en
wat die leser dus toelaat om aktief deel te neem aan die interpretasieproses. Die doel van
hierdie studie is om met behulp van die betekenispotensiaal-teorie, soos uiteengesit deur
post-strukturalis Jacques Derrida, te illustreer hoe die doelbewuste weglating van 'n
duidelik waarneembare betekenis of boodskap dit moontlik maak om die teks op
veelvoudige maniere te interpreteer en daarmee saam ook die lesersprofiel van
prenteboeke te verbreed. Die hoofdoel van hierdie studie is dus om die post-moderne
prenteboek te onderskei van die tradisionele prenteboek en ander tekste en om nuwe
waarnemings en insigte te verskaf in die wyse waarop prenteboeke geskep en gelees
word.Master
The floating city : carnival, Cape Town and the queering of space
Full text linkThesis (MA (VA)(Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.In this thesis I examine the phenomenon of carnival for its corporeal and spatial expressions
of fluid identity formations. The visual constitution of multiple gay/queer identities during
carnival is commonly regarded as transgressive of the normative order that is ideologically
and physically imbedded in the structure of city. I suggest, however, that the various local
performances of homosexuality that are mobilised during the Cape Town Pride Parade can
be interpreted as simultaneous reinforcements and contestations of sexual stereotypes. By
tracing discursive and spatial shifts that have occurred within the South African sexual
landscape, I demonstrate how this carnival both transgresses and bolsters heteronormativity.
In addition, I explore how race and gender play decisive roles in the constitution of a
homonormative gay identity, and investigate how these male, white homonormative
assumptions are challenged by a minority of black and lesbian participants. In the process
of deconstruction, I also reveal how the interaction between spectator and carnival
participant blurs binary constructs of stasis/mobility, subject/object, private/public, and
'normal'/'abnormal'.Master
The African Biennale : envisioning ‘authentic’ African contemporaneity
Full text linkThesis (MA (VA)(Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.This thesis aims to assess the extent to which the African curated exhibition,
Dak’Art: Biennale de l’art africain contemporain , succeeds in subverting
hegemonic Western representations of African art as necessarily ‘exotic’ and
‘Other.’ My investigation of the Dak’Art biennale in this thesis is informed
and preceded by a study of evolutionist assumptions towards African art and
the continuing struggle for command over the African voice. I outline the
trajectory of African art from primitive artifact to artwork, highlighting the
prejudices that have kept Africans from being valued as equals and unique
artists in their own right. I then look at exhibiting techniques employed to
move beyond perceptions of the tribal, to subvert the exoticising tendency of
the West and remedy the marginalised position of the larger African artistic
community.Master
The biopolitics of Gugulective against neoliberal capitalism
Full text linkThesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2017.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In critical and museological practices, a focus on diaspora has not only limited the scope of African art but also neglected a whole discursive field and practical corpus that challenges neoliberal globalisation on the continent. While highly critical, most gallery-bound practices from Africa tend to get privatised and absorbed in inaccessible enclaves of the global art world. However, this study demonstrates that the art of Gugulective has potential to escape privatisation. Within the South African context, Gugulective’s socially engaged collaborative aesthetics contests neoliberal privatisation and co-optation through subject-centred immaterial production. In Gugulective’s biopolitical production, artists and non-artists collaborate in transformative aesthetic projects that contest neoliberal capitalism in South Africa. My term “biopolitical collectivism” describes this collective life-forming artistic practice whose products are immaterial rather than material gallery-bound objects. In a context of neoliberal capitalism, which intensifies inequality, pauperisation, and precarisation of life for profit, Gugulective, among other contemporary African art groups, seeks to transform dehumanised subjectivities through collaborative art production, subjective interchange, and sharing. By decentring the object in subject-oriented art, Gugulective’s biopolitical collectivism confronts biocapitalism on the terrain of life itself. This is particularly evident in projects such as Indaba Ludabi, Akuchanywa Apha, Titled/Untitled, and Siphi? in which Gugulective confronts issues of place, space, and race by deploying a cross-disciplinary and interstitial aesthetic practice which situates itself between the art institution and the non-art world, between aesthetics and activism, the township and the city, the shebeen and the gallery, affects and the art object, art, and life.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaarDoctora
Constructs of expedience / places of experience: National Art Galleries and the formulation of national imaginaries
Full text linkThesis (MA(VA))--Stellenbosch University, 2021.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: It has been widely suggested that ideological state apparatuses such as national galleries play
a significant role in the construction of national imaginaries. This study considers whether the
state institution of SANG can fulfil this task of narrating the national imaginary in the postcolony,
given the financial neglect of the institution by the postcolonial state. I explore the formulation
and narration of a post-apartheid national imaginary through a critical analysis of four
exhibitions which all draw exclusively or extensively from the SANG’s permanent collection. I
contend that each of these exhibitions attempts such a narration of a new national imaginary,
regardless of the extent to which the curators had to manage with severe financial restrictions.
The survey period of 1994 to the present allows for this institutional emergence of a new South
African national imaginary to be explored through a range of discourses including rainbowism,
the African Renaissance, ethnic particularism and supranational identities.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Daar word algemeen voorgestel dat ideologiese staatsapparate soos nasionale galerye 'n
belangrike rol speel in die bou van nasionale verbeeldings. Hierdie studie oorweeg of die
staatsinstelling van die Suid Afrikaanse Nasionale Galery die taak kan vervul om die nasionale
denkbeeld in die postkolonie te vertel, gegewe die finansiële verwaarlosing van kulturele
instelling deur die postkoloniale staat. Ek ondersoek die formulering en vertelling van 'n post-
apartheid nasionale denkbeeld deur 'n kritiese ontleding van vier uitstallings wat almal uitsluitlik
of grootliks uit die permanente versameling van die Suid Afrikaanse Nasionale Galery kom. Ek
beweer dat elkeen van hierdie uitstallings so 'n vertelling van 'n nuwe nasionale denkbeeld
aanpak, ten spite van die mate waarin die kurators ernstige finansiële beperkings moes
bestuur. Die opnametydperk van 1994 tot hede maak dit moontlik om hierdie institusionele
opkoms van 'n nuwe Suid-Afrikaanse nasionale denkbeeld te ondersoek deur 'n
verskeidenheid diskoerse, waaronder reënboogisme, die Afrika Renaissance, etniese
partikularisme en supranasionale identiteitsformering.Master
Reconsidering the conventions employed in comix and comix strips
Full text linkThesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2005.Please refer to full text for abstractMaster
Africa-Lite: cultural appropriation and commodification of historic blackness in post-apartheid fabric and décor design
Full text linkThesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2019.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Over the past few years, cultural appropriation has gained a degree of notoriety as a buzzword, after emerging into the wider public arena from academic, legal and political discourses. Internationally and in South Africa, debates arise predominantly around cases where historically asymmetric power relations are symbolically or materially re-enacted when dominant groups appropriate from economic or political minorities. This study examines the appropriation of colonial images of black individuals and bodies for commodification in twenty-first century South African décor and fabric design. A prominent trend in post-apartheid visual design, the re-purposing and commodification of archival photographs, and its circulation within local and global image economies and design markets demand further research and comprehensive theorising.
I investigate the various aesthetic and discursive devices through which images of black bodies from South Africa’s pre-democratic past - including images of suffering, trauma and revolution - are assimilated for consumption and display within retail, leisure and domestic spheres. I use the notion of ‘subject appropriation’ to account for this form of appropriation, and to investigate the affiliation that indigenous groups claim with archival images in cases of objections to cultural appropriation, as well as where such groups deploy archival images for their own self-fashioning. In proposing a critical humanist and black existentialist approach to cultural appropriation, I suggest rethinking colonial representations as sites central to postcolonial ‘communities of practice’ in ongoing struggle for recognition, restitution and liberation.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek die toeëiening van koloniale uitbeeldings van swart individue en liggame vir kommodifisering deur kontemporêre Suid-Afrikaanse interieur- en tekstielontwerpers. Oor die afgelope paar jaar het toenemende publieke debat oor kulturele toeëiening aan die konsep berugtheid verleen, waar dit voorheen meestal in akademiese, geregtelike en politieke sfere bespreek is. In Suid-Afrika en internasionaal ontstaan hierdie debatte meestal waar histories ongelyke magsverhoudinge in simboliese of materiële wyse dupliseer word wanneer dominante groepe die kulturele eiendom van polities en ekonomiese minderheidsgroepe toeëien. ‘n Prominente tendens in post-apartheid visuele ontwerp - die heraanwending en kommodifisering van argivale fotos - en gevolglike sirkulasie daarvan in plaaslike en globale ontwerp- en kulturele markte, verg verdere navorsing en omvattende teoretisering.
Ek ondersoek die verskeie estetiese en diskursiewe wyses waarop historiese beelde van swart mense uit Suid-Afrika se koloniale verlede – ook beelde van lyding, rewolusie en trauma – assimileer word vir verbruik en tentoonstelling in handels-, ontspannings- en huishoudelike omgewings. Ek gebruik die konsep ‘subjek toeëiening’ om hierdie tipe kulturele toeëiening te bestudeer. Die term word ook gebruik om die affiliasie te ondersoek wat inheemse groepe beweer te hê met argivale beelde, hetsy tydens debatte rondom toeëiening, of waar argivale beelde vir eie kulturele herskepping ontplooi word. Vanuit ‘n krities humanistiese en swart eksistensiële perspektief, stel ek ‘n teoretiese benadering voor wat koloniale uitbeeldings heroorweeg as platforms wat sentraal staan in postkoloniale praktyksgemeenskappe en hul voortgesette stryd vir erkenning, restitusie en vryheid.Doctora
The mark of a silent language : the way the body-mind draws
Full text linkThesis (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2011.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The thesis deals with the notion that individuation in drawing provides visible evidence of
experiential cognition as embodied action. It asserts that trait as enaction signifies
constructive and inventive processes that involve the body-mind. Trait emerges as nonrepresentationist,
non-expressive component of drawing that marks the pre-conceptual as
conceptual. Therefore, drawing functions as a complex interface between drafter and
world that unifies antimonies such as inside and outside; convention and invention;
remoteness and intimacy; body and mind; and subject and object.
The thesis outlines drawing as a self-reflexive research process that constructs and invents.
An understanding of trait as invention, the thesis proposes, can aid the drawing facilitator at
higher education level to develop individual student drafters’ creativity. The thesis therefore
argues for a form of drawing facilitation that is responsive to the complex interaction
between the self and the world. Responsive mediation develops and celebrates diversity in
socio-cultural heritage, personal history, and individual differences.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die idee dat verpersoonlikte trekke in tekenkuns sigbare aanduiding van enaktiewe vergestalting
van kognisie is, vorm die onderwerp van hierdie tesis. Die tesis stel dit dat vergestaltende
ervaringskognisie, as die tekenaar se ervaringsbetrokkenheid, geïndividueerde begrip,
vaardigheid, sintese en betekenisvorming moontlik maak en ontwikkel. Verpersoonlikte trekke in
tekenkuns blyk van non-representatiewe en non-ekspressiewe oorsprong te wees aldaar dit die prekonseptuele
as die konseptuele merk. Dit ondersteun die gedagte dat tekenkuns as ’n komplekse
koppelvlak tussen tekenaar en omwêreld funksioneer. As koppelvlak word die tekenkuns
verwesenlik as ’n sigbare samevloeiing van dualiteite soos binne en buite, die gewone en verdigting,
afstand en intimiteit, subjek en objek, liggaam en gees.
Ingevolge ’n enaktiewe beskouing van die tekenkuns kan die tekenhandeling beskryf word as ’n
selfrefleksiewe navorsingsproses wat kreatiwiteit ondersteun. Sodanige beskouing van die
tekenkuns, lui die argument, kan die fasiliteerder op ’n hoër onderwysvlak help om individuele
tekenstudente se kreatiwiteit te bevorder. Daaruit vloei die voorstel vir ’n vorm van fasilitering wat
gevoelig is vir die ingewikkelde interaksie tussen die self en die omgewing. ’n Vorm van mediasie
wat dit in ag neem, skep nie alleen ruimte vir diversiteit wat betref sosio-kulturele herkoms,
persoonlike geskiedenis en individuele verskille nie, maar ontwikkel en vier ook dié soort diversiteit.Doctora
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