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1
Matindike, Tashinga. "14 ways to remember Nzira gumi nena dzekuyeuka : exploring and preserving memories." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8272.
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Includes abstract.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-107).<br>My project is one of memorialisation, expressed as a creative process. A core theme throughout my work concerns the notions of absence and presence, as the project is founded on a personal loss and inspired by a desire to sustain the memories of my late brother. My investigation involves the exploration and preservation of the memories of my brother. The body of work manifests as the residue of my reflections on grief and memory that I have chosen to exhibit in a commemorative manner. In turn, my practice has functioned as a source of comfort in the course of my mourning.
2
Van, Heerden Peter. "Trek : hitchhiking on the ox-wagon of destiny : voortrekker, draadtrekker, saamtrekker." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/15431.
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Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-64).<br>As a South African artist I am in power to influence some manner of change, through my art, to the structure of national thought and hence national identity. Through my live art installation TOTANDERKUNTUlT, I offered South Africans the opportunity to engage in the cathartic process of resolution and reconciliation through dialogue. The aim of this dialogue is to engender a new method of practice for a non-racialised approach to the development of an integrated cultural identity that South Africans can work towards. I am not proclaiming to have this identity defined. I am positing saamtrekking as a method of practice for an identity that can be practiced by all race, colours and creeds of South Africans. Saamtrekking is a coming together, it is the acknowledged acceptance of some manner of change towards transformation. It requires acknowledgement in order to be practiced, the subject must practice acts of transformative behaviour in order to transform.
3
Tryon, Denzil Jordan. "Hermeneutics and memory in selected works by Willem Boshoff." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004453.
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From Introduction: Willem Boshoff was born in Vereeniging, South Africa, in 1951. The son of a carpenter, Boshoff developed an early interest in art. Although never taught formally by his father, he nevertheless acquired a knowledge of the craft of carpentry, a skill which he continues to utilize in much of his art-making today. Boshoff studied at the Johannesburg College of Art, and obtained a Master's Diploma in Technology in Fine Art in 1984. He taught at that institution for twelve years, becoming a full-time art practitioner in 1996. He produced some significant works prior to and during the time of his teaching tenure, including his KykAfrikaans visual poetry in 1979-1980, Bangboek between 1977-1986, and the researching and writing of the Dictionary of Perplexing English in 1986 (ending in 1999). In this study I will discuss Willem Boshoff's careful employment of language and materials, througb which he propagates his "study of ignorance" (Williamson and Jamal 1996:148). I will investigate two major works by Boshoff, namely The Writing in the Sand and The Blind Alphabet in Chapters 1 and 2 respectively. Both of these installations are concerned fundamentally with the subversion of power relationships and elitism. As I will show, both works offer an opportunity to investigate their objectives in relation to discourses surrounding language and hermeneutics. My study includes a third chapter, in which I discuss my own work entitled The Bread of the Presence in relation to Boshoff's own methodologies. As will be demonstrated with particular reference to The Blind Alphabet and my own work, a discussion of memory proves to be of some relevance within this dialogue.
4
Van, Wyk Josly. "A practice-led exploration of the aesthetics of household waste in selected South African visual artworks." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/60437.
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In this practice-led exploration, I investigate the aesthetic potential of household waste. With household waste as the object of investigation, I explore the cultural signification of waste in terms of the role it plays in art practice. I look into the found object, bricoleur culture and the sculptural process of assemblage. By considering how assemblage allows for the inclusion of waste materials, the lowly status of household waste leads my art practice to a do-it-yourself approach. This approach of incorporating waste materials into artworks shifts the focus from the physical state to the conceptual meaning of waste. The shift that occurs when the waste object is displaced into art is central to this research study, owing to the capacity of these objects to connote meaning. I refer to this capacity as the social agency of waste materials. My investigation pertains to how art practice may alter or enhance the meaning of household waste. The physical cycle of waste, the constant change in use value that is promoted by consumer society and the process of conceptual adaptation instil a nomadic quality in household waste. I view the nomadic quality of waste as a means to activate viewer participation.
I investigate, in particular case studies, how the interrelationship of installation art, site-specificity and community-based art may contribute to an experiential mode of viewing. I apply the lens of phenomenology and contemporary environmental aesthetics to interpret how viewers engage with art installations. My investigation of confrontational art installations has informed the approach of my own creative research. To convey the nomadic quality of waste, I have developed a series of quasi-functional sculptural artworks that act as mechanical modes of movement to signify an industrial influence of consumerism. Through community art practice as an interrelated field of research, the community members of Rietondale, particularly the school learners from workshops I presented, influenced my approach to my own art practice as I had sought to influence theirs. This mini-dissertation serves as a reflection on the coinciding thought process, material journey and collaborative initiative of a practice-led exploration of the aesthetics of household waste.<br>Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2016.<br>Visual Arts<br>MA<br>Unrestricted
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Lochner, Eben. "The democratisation of art CAP as an alternative art space in South Africa." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002205.
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While formal arts education was inaccessible to many during Apartheid, community-based centres played a significant role in the training of previously disadvantaged artists. By engaging in a socio-political critique of the history of South African art, this thesis argues that even though alternative art spaces are often marginalised, they remain essential to the diversification and democratisation of contemporary South African art today with its re-entry into the international art scene. According to Lize van Robbroeck (2004:52), “some of the fundamental ideals of community arts need to be revised to enrich, democratize and diversify [South Africa's] cultural practice.” The aim of my Thesis is to investigate this statement in relation to the contribution the Community Arts Project (CAP) in Cape Town (1977-2003). CAP and other art centres have played an indispensable role in the establishment of black artists and in producing a locally reflective artistic practice in South Africa, even into the 21st century. Through researching the changes the organisation underwent between the 1980s and 1990s, the ways in which such art centres constantly need to respond to the changing sociopolitical landscape around them become clear. Within South Africa these centres were seen to play a significant part in the liberation struggle and then later in nation building. While these centres were well supported by foreign donors in the late 1980s, such funding was withdrawn in 1991 and the majority of art centres collapsed, illustrating to some degree that the training of artist was not valued outside the context of the struggle against apartheid. By interviewing key people and by reading documentation stored at the Manuscripts and Archives department of UCT I have discovered some of the different benefits and hindrances of working in community art centres both during and after Apartheid. This thesis argues that these centres still play a vital role in contributing to the development of South Africa's local art practice and should not be relegated to the sideline.
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Viljoen, Vida Alexandra. "Socio-spatialities of visual art in Stellenbosch." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/96804.
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Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2015.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The social and spatial dimensions of any settlement are widely recognised in the international literature as having been shaped notably by art in some of the so-called cities of art or culture, such as Florence, Venice and other, smaller cultural nodes around the world. Arts resources have an impact on the socio-spatial dimension of a locale in a multitude of ways, and an understanding thereof can be hugely beneficial to a town‟s development and success. When developed, utilised and protected correctly, the full positive effects of such resources can be achieved to stimulate an inclusive and diverse art town setting. The Western Cape town of Stellenbosch is reputed for its rich arts and cultural heritage, yet there has not been extensive academic research concerning the incidence and effects thereof. Hence, Stellenbosch provides a platform from which to study the socio-spatial influence that visual art brings about in the interplay between art, people and space. Enhanced planning and decision making can then be undertaken for the current and future protection and management of art resources, equipping Stellenbosch to be part of a world that is both a competitive global market and diverse sphere of social constructs and discourses.
The exploration of notions such as commoditisation, the places and spaces of art, formal and informal public art, artwork defacement, and the sense of place brought about by the art in Stellenbosch to obtain an overarching impression of the nature and extent of the influences of art on the socio-spatial dimension was the primary aim of this study. A descriptive overview of the socio-spatialities brought about by art in the so-called art town of Stellenbosch is provided by utilising in-depth interviews in combination with a minor GIS component. This enables an overall view of the public perception of art in Stellenbosch, as well as a visual overview of the distribution of the available art resources, hence providing new attribute and spatial data that can inform future initiatives in the town.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In die internasionale literatuur word die sosiale en ruimtelike dimensies van ‟n nedersetting wyd erken as deur kuns gevorm te wees in sommige sogenaamde stede van kuns of kultuur, soos Florence of Venesië, en ander, kleiner kulturele nodes regoor die wêreld. Kunsbronne het op ‟n magdom van maniere ‟n impak op die sosio-ruimtelike dimensie van ‟n land, en ‟n begrip daarvan is uiters voordelig vir ‟n dorp se ontwikkeling en sukses. Wanneer dié bronne toepaslik ontwikkel, benut en beskerm word, kan die volle positiewe uitwerking daarvan bereik word om ‟n inklusiewe en diverse kunsdorpomgewing te stimuleer. Die Wes-Kaapse dorp Stellenbosch is bekend vir sy ryk kuns- en kulturele erfenis, maar uitgebreide akademiese navorsing oor die voorkoms en gevolge daarvan is nog nie onderneem nie. Stellenbosch bied dus ‟n platform waarop die sosio-ruimtelike invloed van visuele kuns in die wisselwerking tussen kuns, mense en die ruimte bestudeer kan word. Verbeterde beplanning en besluitneming kan dan gedoen word vir die huidige en toekomstige beskerming en bestuur van kunsbronne, wat Stellenbosch sal toerus vir ‟n wêreld wat beide ‟n kompeterende globale mark en diverse terrein van sosiale konstrukte en diskoerse is.
Die ondersoek van begrippe soos kommodifikasie, die plekke en ruimtes van kuns, formele en informele openbare kuns, kunswerkskending, en sin van plek wat deur die kuns in Stellenbosch teweeg gebring word, verskaf ‟n oorkoepelende indruk van die aard en omvang van die invloede van kuns op die sosio-ruimtelike dimensie, wat die primêre doel van hierdie studie was. ‟n Beskrywende oorsig van die sosio-ruimtelikheid wat deur kuns in die sogenaamde kunsdorp Stellenbosch teweeg gebring word, is verskaf deur gebruik te maak van in-diepte onderhoude in kombinasie met ‟n kleiner GIS-komponent. Dit lewer ‟n geheelbeeld van die openbare persepsie van kuns op Stellenbosch, sowel as ‟n visuele oorsig van die verspreiding van die kunsbronne wat beskikbaar is, wat dus nuwe attribuut- en ruimtelike data verskaf wat toekomstige inisiatiewe op die dorp kan inlig.
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Cosser, Marijke. "Images of a changing frontier worldview in Eastern Cape art from Bushman rock art to 1875." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002196.
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A discussion of the concept of worldview shows that how an artist conceives the world in his images is governed by his worldview - an amalgam of the worldview of the group of which he is a part modified by his own ideas, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions and upbringing. The author proposes that studying an artist's work can reveal his, and hence his group's, worldview and thus the attitudes prevalent when the work was produced. A brief historical sketch of the Eastern Cape to 1834 introduces the various settlers in the area. Though no known examples of Black, Boer or Khoi pictorial art are extant, both the Bushmen and the British left such records. A short analysis of rock art shows how the worldview of the Bushman is inherent in their images which reflect man's world as seen with the "inner" eye of the spirit. In white settler art, the author submits that spatial relationships changed in response to a growing confidence as the "savage" land was "civilised" and that the position, pose and size of figures - and the inclusion or exclusion of certain groups - reflect socio-political changes. The two foremost nineteenth-century Eastern Cape artists, Thomas Baines and Frederick I'Ons, succeeded in capturing the atmosphere of Frontier life but are shown to interpret their surroundings through the rose-tinted spectacles of British Romanticism. They also reveal individuality in approach - Baines preferring expansive views while I'Ons's landscapes tend to be "closed-in", strictly following the coulisse scheme of Picturesque painting. Perhaps, the author postulates, such differences result from the very different environments, i.e. Norfolk and London, in which the two grew up. I'Ons is shown typically to use generalised landscapes as backdrops for his foreground figures, while comparing Baines's scenes with modern photographs shows that he adjusted the spacial elements of the topography as well as the temporal sequence of events to suit aesthetic considerations. Lithographed reports of his work contain even further adjustments. The author concludes that the use of Africana art as historical records must be treated with great caution.
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Bezuidenhout, Vincent. "Separate amenities : topographics of recreational spaces in South Africa." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10152.
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The body of photographs discussed in this document examine the way in which the landscape was constructed to enforce separation, in the form of separate amenities, during the time of apartheid in South Africa. This project is situated within the context of a long history of representation of the landscape, but I will position my practise within the more recent political history of apartheid during which separate amenities were created. Referring to David Goldblatt's interpretation of structures with regards to his representation of the South African landscape I will examine both the political and structural history of these locations.
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Boezaart, Kim. "Contemporary avant-garde jewellery in South Africa." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/51665.
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Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2000.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study considers the dynamics and nature of neo-avant-garde
jewellery with specific reference to contemporary South African (neoavant-
garde) jewellery.
In Chapter One defensible working descriptions of the terms "avant-garde"
and "neo-avant-garde" are established in order to establish some
manageable conclusions regarding their application to jewellery design.
These descriptions are derived from a consideration of the concepts in
contemporary aesthetic discourse.
Chapter Two considers the role, justifications and implications of
adornment with a view to isolating the development, influences and nature
of neo-avant-garde jewellery. A distinction is drawn between the
aesthetics, ontology and art-relevant status of such jewellery and
commercial or mainstream jewellery.
Chapter Three analyses specific examples of contemporary South African
avant-garde jewellery in the light of the above-mentioned distinctions.
Works are considered in relation to the transgression of material, the
transgression of taste, the transgression of integrity of form and the
integration of narrative and parochial content and attempts to demonstrate
that an appropriate critical posture in regard to such jewellery is art, rather
than craft-relevant.
In Chapter Four general influences regarding themes and concepts
apparent in the author's body of practical work are discussed. An
annotated catalogue supplements the general discussion.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: CONTEMPORARY AVANT-GARDE JEWELLERY IN SOUTH AFRICA
Hierdie studie ondersoek die dinamika en karaktereienskappe van neoavant-
garde juweliersware, met spesifieke verwysing na kontemporêre
Suid-Afrikaanse neo-avant-garde juweliersware.
In Hoofstuk Een word die terme "avant-garde" en "neo-avant-garde"
beskryf. Die doel hiervan is om uiteindelik die omvattende gebruike en
definisies van hierdie terme (met betrekking op kontemporêre estetika)
vas te lê.
Hoofstuk Twee gee 'n oorsig aangaande die redes vir- en implikasies van
fisieke versiering. Die ontwikkeling, invloede en aard van neo-avant-garde
juweliersware word bespreek en gekontrasteer met komersiêle
jeweliersware.
In lig van die bogenoemde onderskeidings verwys Hoofstuk Drie na
spesifieke Suid-Afrikaanse voorbeelde van neo-avant-garde
juweliersware. Hierdie voorbeelde word oorweeg in terme van hul
oorskryding van tradisionele grense aangaande materiaalgebruik, smaak,
integriteit van vorm en die integrasie van relaas. Die studie poog om die
relevansie van neo-avant-garde juweliersware as kuns eerder as kunsvlyt
te demonstreer.
In Hoofstuk Vier word die outeur se praktiese werke bespreek deur middel
van 'n geannoteerde katalogus. Die katalogus word voorafgegaan deur 'n
bespreking van invloede, temas en konsepte van die deurlopende
ooreenkomste in die outeur se werke verduidelik.
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Cowley, Kerstin. "An investigation into outsider sculpture with special reference to D.C. van der Mescht." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1010608.
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It was both by luck and by accident that Dirk Charley van der Mescht's creations were discovered as a topic for research ... a recluse who lived out in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. It was said of this man that he was a strange person who produced even stranger works. On investigation it was discovered that he was an Outsider sculptor by the name of D. C. van der Mescht. He and his family live at a small railway siding, known as Zuney, eighteen kilometres west of Alexandria. Isolated, uneducated and untutored, he had created an environment of sculptures for no apparent reason at all. The only explanation he appeared to be able to offer is that: he just does it. Intro. p. 1.
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Nagel, Brigette Mariana. "An update on the process economics of biogas in South Africa based on observations from recent Installations." Master's thesis, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30933.
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This dissertation investigates, in the context of South Africa (SA), the process economics of energy from biogas, and hence the financial viability establishing a biogas plant in the absence of a formal incentivisation programme. Firstly, the study set out to establish an improved understanding of the costs associated with the technology. Data on the capital- and running costs of existing biogas plants in SA were sourced by means of stakeholder interviews, and compared with published data on similar plants in countries where the biogas sector is more mature. Two biogas usage pathways were evaluated: biogas-to-electricity through a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system, and biogas-to-biomethane. Regression analysis was carried out on the observed costs, and this was used to predict future costs. A capacity-cost factor of 0.68 for biogas-to-electricity and 0.57 for biogas-tobiomethane was obtained. Statistical hypothesis testing revealed that the values are significantly smaller than 1, which indicates that economies of scale are observed in both cases. A Lang factor of 1.81 was determined, based on cost data from 20 medium- to large scale biogas plants in South Africa. Operational and Maintenance costs were determined to vary between R2.6 – R4.6 per Nm3 biogas produced where significant feedstock sorting and/or transport costs are present and R0.3 – R1.4 per Nm3 biogas produced where minimal feedstock sorting and/or transport costs are present. It was observed that energy can be recovered from biogas plants at a Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) of 0.5 – 2 R/kWh in SA, which corresponds with the range of 1.8 – 2.8 R/kWh documented internationally, even though the LCOE in SA is generally lower that what is observed abroad, especially at plant capacities greater than 1 MW. Based on a financial analysis, a positive Net Present Value (NPV) for a medium-cost CHP plant where only electricity is utilised as income stream is possible from 0.3 MWe upward, with greater returns at higher plant capacities. For a biomethane plant, a positive NPV can be attained at plant capacities of 4 MWeq and higher. A comparison on the financial benefits of two different biogas usage pathways revealed that a biomethane plant has greater potential profitability than a CHP plant at capacities greater than 5 MWeq, whereas at smaller capacities, a CHP plant would yield better returns. The most attractive investment scenario evaluated was a 6 MWeq biomethane plant, where a Return on Investment (ROI) of 18% could be attained with a payback period of 8 years for a plant lifetime of 20 years. However, a risk analysis making use of Monte Carlo simulation revealed that such a project will only have an 91% chance of obtaining a positive NPV, which is below the set benchmark of 95%. Considering the high up-front capital investment associated with a large scale biogas project, it is anticipated that the financial risks associated with such a project would be too high to merit investment at current conditions in South Africa. This could, however, be mitigated if an additional income stream could be established in the form of an incentive, subsidy, grant, or alternatively a waste treatment gate-fee or fertiliser sales income. Lastly, if electricity and fuel prices in South Africa continue to increase at the rate observed over the past two decades, the business case for a single-income-stream biogas plant will become increasingly attractive and profitable in the near future.
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Botha, Ferdi, Brett Scott, and Jen Snowball. "Art investment as a portfolio diversification strategy in South Africa." Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67422.
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publisher version<br>Art has been suggested as a good way to diversify investment portfolios during times of financial uncertainty. The argument is that art exhibits different risk and return characteristics to conventional investments in other asset classes. The new Citadel Art Price index offered the opportunity to test this theory in the South African context. The Citadel index uses the hedonic regression method with observations drawn from the top 100, 50 and 20 artists by sales volume, giving approximately 29 503 total auction observations. The Index consists of quarterly data from the period 2000Q1 to 2013Q3. A VAR of the art price index, Johannesburg Stock Exchange all-share index, house price index, and South African government bond index were used. Flowing from the VAR results, additional analyses included variance decomposition, impulse response, and, to determine volatility, variance and standard deviation measures for each index. Results show that, when there are increased returns on the stock market in the previous period and wealth increases, there is a change in the Citadel Art Price Index in the same direction. This finding is consistent with Goetzmann et al. (2009), who reported that there is a strong relationship between art and equity markets and that art price changes are driven by capital gains and losses. No significant difference was found between the house price index and the art price index, and neither between the art and government bond price indices. Overall, the South African art market does not offer the opportunity to diversify portfolios dominated by either property, bonds, or shares.
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Stevenson, Michael. "Old masters and aspirations : the Randlords, art and South Africa." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20200.
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Includes bibliographical references.<br>In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, a small group of capitalists, many of whom were from middle-class German-Jewish backgrounds, made vast fortunes from exploiting deposits of gold and diamonds in South Africa, using local labour. These mining magnates accumulated their wealth first in Kimberley in the 1870s and, later, in Johannesburg in the late 1880s. Thereafter, most of them moved to Britain, where they lived for the rest of their lives. By the mid-1890s, as their aspirations became increasingly pronounced, the term 'Randlords' was coined in the London press to describe them. In this study, I have used this collective term in reference to the men who took part in the rough-and-tumble scramble for gold and diamonds before adopting an upper class lifestyle in Britain. Critical discussion of almost all the Randlord collections is hampered by the scarcity of primary material relating to the formation of their collections and, in some cases, even to what was in them. A point of departure for this thesis therefore was to reconstruct an inventory for each of the collections. These inventories (which are included as appendices) list each painting in the collection, possible changes in its attribution (where this is known), its title, its provenance (from whom and when the painting was purchased, and at what price), the present-day whereabouts of the painting (where this is known), and, wherever possible, an appropriate reference to the painting in a catalogue raisonne or sale catalogue or, in the absence of the latter, in the art historical literature The thesis is primarily concerned with the manner in which the identities of the Randlords were shaped and redefined through the acquisition of works of art and other material goods. It demonstrates that their eventual efforts to construct new upper-class identities were strenuous and pronounced. An integral component of this strategy to assert their social position was to participate in the accumulation and display of highly symbolic goods and properties to convey their new-found status in Britain. Throughout this thesis, the Randlords' acquisition of art is treated as one facet of their conspicuous · consumption. In keeping with this argument, the purchase and furnishing of country 11 houses, lavish expenditure on entertaining, the ownership of town houses, and the acquisition of titles are considered in relation to their an collections. The introduction includes a survey of the literature on the Randlords, a brief overview of the history of their involvement in the South African mining industry, an overview of their collections, and the context in which they assembled these collections. This is followed by five chapters focusing on the collections of Sir Julius and Lady Wernher, Alfred Beit and his brother Sir Otto, Sir Max and Lady Michaelis, Sir Lionel and Lady Phillips and Sir Joseph (and Lady Robinson). A range of issues are foregrounded in each of these chapters. For example, the widespread preference for seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings is considered in the Beit chapter, and for eighteenth- century British portraits in the Beit and Robinson chapters. The limited interest in Italian and Renaissance paintings is explored in the Wernher and Robinson chapters, and the strong interest in eighteenth-century French furniture is discussed in the Wernher chapter. Issues relating to philanthropy are discussed in the Michaelis and Phillips chapters, and the Randlords' connections to South Africa are explored through an examination of Michaelis' gift of Dutch and Flemish pictures to the Union of South Africa in 1912, and through Lady Phillips' involvement in founding an art gallery in Johannesburg in 1909. The thesis argues that works of art served a range of functions for the Randlords - acting as a store of wealth, providing public confirmation of the extent of their wealth, and in this way, assisting them in realising their social aspirations.
14
Jones, Caroline Elizabeth. "Art and investment a study on how investment in art affects the contemporary artist in South Africa." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002200.
Full text
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Becker, Carl. "South African art institutions : their formation and strategy with particular reference to the question of legitimacy." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007622.
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I have examined the relationship between the art institution and its social base, and the way in which legitimacy is sought and maintained under changing social circumstances. The social pattern of 'avante garde artist' vs. 'philistine public' has tended to be the context within which 20th century art has developed. The consequent disjuncture between the public art institution and its social base was subsequently accepted as the natural condition of Fine Art production. During the 1980's, two significant factors were to influence this 'natural' condition: i) The demise of 'modernism' internationally, ' which broadened the scope of allowable objects for consideration as Fine Art. ii) Political mobilisation in South Africa was accompanied by calls for democratisation and charges of 'elitism' being levelled against many public institutions. These factors have combined to make the S.A. art institutions (public galleries, tertiary teaching institutions and national art competitions) re-assess their legitimacy, particularly in terms of 'accountability' and 'representativeness' . A close examination of these two factors is essential if one is to gain insight into the current condition of the public art institutions. This research is an attempt to understand the history and the current nature of the shifting relationship between the art institutions and the 'public' in South Africa. A further goal is to assess the extent to which concepts that are valid within the realm of the polity can be transposed into the cultural realm: A tendency prevalent within the cultural debate in South Africa during the 1980's. The emphasis of this mini thesis is on the artworld's perception of its social role. I therefore look at the way changing attitudes are reflected in the statements and writing of leading figures within this sector. The method is to critically analyse texts that pertain to my chosen area of research.
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Von, Veh Karen Elaine. "Transgressive Christian iconography in post-apartheid South African art." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002220.
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In this study I propose that transgressive interpretations of Christian iconography provide a valuable strategy for contemporary artists to engage with perceived social inequalities in postapartheid South Africa. Working in light of Michel Foucault’s idea of an “ontology of the present”, I investigate the ways in which religious iconography has been implicated in the regulation of society. Parodic reworking of Christian imagery in the selected examples is investigated as a strategy to expose these controls and offer a critique of mechanisms which produce normative ‘truths’. I also consider how such imagery has been received and the factors accounting for that reception. The study is contextualized by a brief, literary based, historical overview of Christian religious imagery to explain the strength of feeling evinced by religious images. This includes a review of the conflation of religion and state control of the masses, an analysis of the sovereign controls and disciplinary powers that they wield, and an explication of their illustration in religious iconography. I also identify reasons why such imagery may have seemed compelling to artists working in a post-apartheid context. By locating recent works in terms of those made elsewhere or South African examples prior to the period that is my focus, the works discussed are explored in terms of broader orientations in post-apartheid South African art. Artworks that respond to specific Christian iconography are discussed, including Adam and Eve, The Virgin Mary, Christ, and various saints and sinners. The selected artists whose works form the focus of this study are Diane Victor, Christine Dixie, Majak Bredell, Tracey Rose, Wim Botha, Conrad Botes, Johannes Phokela and Lawrence Lemaoana. Through transgressive depictions of Christian icons these artists address current inequalities in society. The content of their works analysed here includes (among others): the construction of both female and male identities; sexual roles, social roles, and racial identity; the social expectations of contemporary motherhood; repressive role models; Afrikaner heritage; political and social change and its effects; colonial power; sacrifice; murder, rape, and violence in South Africa; abuses of power by role models and politicians; rugby; heroism; and patricide. Christian iconography is a useful communicative tool because it has permeated many cultures over centuries, and the meanings it carries are thus accessible to large numbers of people. Religious imagery is often held sacred or is regarded with a degree of reverence, thus ensuring an emotive response when iconoclasm or transgression of any sort is identified. This study argues that by parodying sacred imagery these artists are able to disturb complacent viewing and encourage viewers to engage critically with some of its underlying implications.
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Scadden, David. "The road to heaven." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8271.
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Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-82).<br>Growing up, I used to have a book called The Unexplained, and inside it was a picture of the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. Bosch's paintings were full of weird and wonderful animals coupled with hundreds of naked men and women in what looked like a garden party of the most exotic kind. To imagine such a place was arousing; to imagine a place full of fruit and naked people should turn everyone on, regardless of sexual preference.
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Bird, S. "The grapes of wrath : sculpture as socio-political critique in South Africa." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7801.
Full textAbstract:
Includes abstract.|Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-56).<br>The title is borrowed from the classic novel by John Steinbeck published in 1939¹. It is a story that ostensibly concerns the Joad family's move from the agricultural hinterland of America to the promised land of California. Steinbeck's intention is the sympathetic portrayal of the human cost of mechanised agricultural revolution. The story plots the collision of old value systems with new profit driven capitalistic drives (Thompson and Kutach, 1990:143). The attendant ramifications see a great shift in the rural population to the urban areas. Much arable land is bought up by faceless consortiums and banks, leaving the farm dwellers little choice but to pack up and leave in search of work, in this manner a way of life for hundreds of thousands of unsophisticated, hard-working people comes to an end.
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Cook, Robyn. "The new institutions : artist-run participative platforms and initiatives in South Africa." Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/58466.
Full textAbstract:
In a contemporary South African context of artistic production and exhibition, there are few spaces or arenas dedicated to the development and presentation of experimental and/or non-commercial practices – a void that has become increasingly evident amidst the growing interest in participatory art and social aesthetics. However, and as the central thesis of this study suggests, in response to the lack of infrastructure for open-ended, idea-rich and socially focused praxis, artists have adopted a do-it-yourself approach to ‘filling the void’. That is, artists have taken it upon themselves to address the absence of experimental and/or laboratory ‘space’ by creating autonomous, self-directed initiatives, through a variety of non-traditional and context-specific methodologies.
Using a meta-analytical approach, this research project tracks the rise of the artist-run initiative (ARI) in South Africa. It is suggested that ARIs that utilise participative methodologies such as open-source sharing, collaborative economies (trade, bartering, collectivism, etc.) and/or user-generated organisational approaches offer generative alternatives for the development and presentation of experimental and/or non-commercial projects within a South African context – arguably a new New-Institutionalism.
Critically, I explore a number of potential paradoxes inherent within this approach, including issues around the artist operating as a ‘double agent’, as well as various problematics associated with employing a collaborative economy within a wider capitalistic system. I conclude, however, that despite these concerns, artist-run participative initiatives suggest radical new possibilities, not only in terms of alternative forms of institution-building, but also regarding a critical re-imagining of authorship, ‘collectivity’, economic democracy, and inclusivity within artistic production.
As the first sustained and discursive engagement on artist-run initiatives in South Africa, or more particularly artist-run participative initiatives, the research is intended to fill a significant gap in the literature, and provide a resource for further research and practice.<br>Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2016.<br>National Research Foundation (NRF) Thuthuka<br>Visual Arts<br>PhD<br>Unrestricted
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De, Beer Esther. "Spicing South Africa: representations of food and culinary traditions in South African contemporary art and literature." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/20027.
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Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Francoise Vergés comments in her essay Let’s Cook! that “one could write the history of a
people, of a country, of a continent by writing the history of its culinary habits” (250 ).
Vergés here refers to the extent to which food can be seen to document and record certain
events or subjectivities. Exploring a wide range of texts spanning the late 1800s up to the
post-apartheid present, this thesis focuses in particular on the ways in which “spice” as
commodity, ingredient or symbol is employed to articulate and/or embed creole and diasporic
identities within the South African national context.
The first chapter maps the depiction of the “Malay” figure within cookery books, focussing
on the extent to which it is caught up in the trappings of the picturesque. This visibility is
often mediated by the figure’s proximity to food. These depictions are then placed in
conversation with the conceptual artist Berni Searle’s photographic and video installations.
Searle visually interrogates the stagnant modes of representation that accrue around the figure
of the “Malay” and moves toward understandings of how food and food narratives structure
cultural identity as complex and mutable.
Chapter two shifts focus from the Cape to the ways in which “Indian Cuisine” became
significant within the South African context. Here the Indian housewife plays a role in
perpetuating a distinctive cultural identity. The three primary texts discussed in this chapter
are the popular Indian Delights cookery book authored by the Women’s Cultural Group,
Shamim Sarif’s The World Unseen and Imraan Coovadia’s The Wedding. Indian Delights.
All illustrate the extent to which the realm of the kitchen, traditionally a female domain,
becomes a space from which alternative subjectivities can be made. The kitchen as a place for
cultural retention is explored further and to differing degrees in both The Wedding and The
World Unseen.
Ultimately, indentifying cultural heritage through food enables tracing alternative and
intersecting cultural identities that elsewhere, are often left out for neat and new ethnic,
cultural or national identities. The thesis will in particular explore the extent to which spices
used within creole and/or diasporic culinary practices encode complex affiliations and
connections. Tracing the intimacies and the disjunctures becomes productive within the postapartheid
present where the vestiges of apartheid’s taxonomical impetus alongside a new
multicultural model threaten to erase further the complexities and nuances of everyday life.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In haar artikel Let’s Cook! wys Francoise Vergés daarop dat die geskiedenis van ‘n mens, ‘n
land of selfs ‘n kontinent saamgestel sou kon word deur te skryf oor die geskiedenis van hulle
kos en eetgewoontes (250).Vergés skep hier ‘n besef van individuele en sosiale identiteit wat
deur kos geleenthede vasgevang kan word. Deur bronne vanaf die laat 1800’s tot die postapartheid
periode te bestudeer, fokus hierdie navorsing spesifiek op die wyse waarop
speserye as kommoditeit, inhoud of simbool gebruik word om die kreoolse en diasporiese
identiteite in Suid Afrika te bevestig of te bevraagteken.
Die eerste hoofstuk lewer ‘n uiteensetting en beskrywing, soos verkry uit kookboeke, van die
stereotypes wat vorm om die Maleise figuur. Daar word konsekwent gefokus op die mate
waarin die sigbaarheid van die Maleise identiteit verstrengel word in ‘n bestaande raamwerk
van diskoerse. Die Maleise figure word dikwels meer sigbaar in die konteks van kos en
eetgewoontes. Berni Searl se fotografiese en video installasies word gebruik om hierdie
stereotiepiese visuele kodes te bevraagteken. Searle ontgin die passiewe wyse waarop die
Maleise persoon visueel verbeeld word en beklemtoon dan hoe kos en gesprekke oor kos die
kulturele identiteit kompleks en dinamies maak.
Hoofstuk twee verskuif die klem vanaf die Kaap na die wyse waarop die Indiese kookkuns
identiteit kry in die Suid Afrikaanse konteks. Die fokus val hier op die rol van die Indiese
huisvrou en haar kombuis in die bevestiging en uitbou van ‘n onderskeibare kulturele
identiteit. Die drie kern tekste wat in hierdie hoofstuk bespreek word is die wel bekende en
populere Indian Delights kookboek wat saamgestel is deur die Women’s Cultural Group,
Shamim Sarif se The World Unseen en Imraan Coovadia se The Wedding. Indian Delights
toon verder die mate waarin die kombuis as primere domein van die vrou, ‘n ruimte bied vir
die formulering van alternatiewe subjek posisies. Die kombuis bied ook geleentheid vir
inherente subversie wat verder en op alternatiewe wyse ontgin word in die bronne The
Wedding en The World Unseen.
Deur kos te gebruik om kulturele identiteit te verstaan bied ook die geleentheid om kulturele
oorvleueling te verstaan al mag sommige groepe beskou word as onafhanklik in hul
oorsprong en identiteit. Hierdie navorsing gee spesifiek aandag aan die mate waarin speserye
en die gebruik daarvan in kreoolse en diasporiese kookkuns die kompleksiteite,
soortgelykhede, verskille en misverstande reflekteer. Dit is veral waardevol om te let op
soortgelykhede en verskille gegee dat die apartheidstaksonomie van die verlede en die huidige multikulturele model die rykheid en subtiele nuanseerings van die daaglikse bestaan
verder kan erodeer.
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Xulu, Senzo Siphesihle. "The art of education reform: an analysis of the relationship between arts education and performance in mathematics and science." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/14124.
Full textAbstract:
The role of the Arts Education in South African Education has long been a contentious and disputable topic. Despite this, a large amount of literature has been compiled advocating for the inclusion of the arts in schooling systems worldwide. Most of this literature speaks of the benefits of the arts, covering how they directly and indirectly affect 1) The learning environment 2) The learner and 3) The performance of the learner in other subjects. The basis of this study is to intently look at the third factor, the influence of the arts on a learner’s performance in other subjects, like Mathematics and Science. Though education reform programs are neither new nor few in number, those that have been implemented through the arts, and in low socio-economic areas, portray art education as a salient ingredient to holistic education reform. The study draws from such reform programs, from around the world, and categorically shows how they have successfully integrated arts education into their curricula. Through the investigation of the success and implementation of these programs, this paper shows that creativity - through the teaching of the arts - is a vital key to the education reform that South Africa is in need of, particularly in mathematics and science.
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Fitzgerald, Molly Louise. "Stigma and the social context of ART in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa." Thesis, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (University of London), 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.499998.
Full textAbstract:
The thesis presents findings from a qualitative study about the social context of Anti- retroviral therapy (ART) in rural South Africa. The study involved in-depth interviews with People living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) at enrolment into ART (n=30) and at four months of treatment (n=26); caregivers (n=9) identified by the ART participants; health care providers (n=5) associated with the hospital-based ART clinic, and traditional healers (n=S). The research aimed to: 1) identify what forms and expressions of stigma exist in the social care context of participants enrolled in treatment; 2) explore how stigma influences social interactions over the course of ART therapy; and 3) understand the consequences of social interactions for treatment and health of ART initiators. Stigma was examined and disentangled from other key factors that potentially interfere with optimal treatment and health outcomes. The study explores the interplay of stigma and power through disclosure of HIV status and the event of initiating ART. The data is organised using Joffe's (1999) framework, which emphasizes that individuals establish both group identities as well as shared representations of risk within the historical and present day culturally situated contexts (Joffe 1999). The emphasis on maintaining a positive notion of identity remains consistent with an interpretation of Goffman's concept of stigma as a process of spoiling identity. Underlying study aims was the broader intention to improve the understanding of linkages between individual and contextual factors related to HIV / AIDS stigma. Social roles, including Parsons' (1982) "sick role" are used to understand expectations and obligations associated with identities, including PLHA. I examine the process of social discrediting identity by looking at the effect of language and by examining roles.
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Ogu, Memoye Abijah. "William Plomer's and Sol Plaatje's South Africa: art as vision and reality." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002282.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis essays a comparative study of William Plomer's Turbott Wolfe (1925) and Sol Plaatje's Mhudi (1930). Although writing from very different subject positions within the social order of the time, Plomer and Plaatje embody in their novels a strikingly similar vision of a South Africa free of racial barriers. Plaatje's version of South African history in Mhudi deconstructs colonial binarism by dramatizing not only conflict and difference but also co-operation and commonality. Holding the past up as a mirror to the present, it protests against racial injustice while implying the continuing possibility of reconciliation. Plomer reacts angrily to white hypocrisy and insists on the rights and humanity of his African characters, in the name of imperatives both moral and political. He seeks additional sanction for these by situating the South African race questioning the context of a Western world slowly awakening to the consequences of modernity. During a time of political turbulence, both writers speak out boldly and confidently against the rising dominance of segregationist ideology. The imminent inception of full democracy in South Africa has reanimated the relevance of these writers' vision of a non- racial social order. If one of the challenges facing the South African literary historian 'today is the reconstruction of a truly national literary tradition, then Mhudi and Turbott Wolfe would appear to be key works in such an enterprise. As different as Plaatje's epic myth-making is from Plomer's modernist irony, both novels contrive to speak with a new voice: a national voice which expresses the aspirations of all South Africa's people. They are, moreover, novels whose survival seems guaranteed as much by their aesthetic qualities as by their ideological orientation. The novels are examined against the backgrounds of South African society and colonial literary production. They are seen as milestones in the development of a liberal South African literary tradition. By breaking with the dominant oppositional mode, whether that of "white writing" or an emergent "writing black", Plomer and Plaatje exemplify a literature at once socially relevant and possessed of a prophetic vision that remains of significance in South Africa today.
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Riep, David Matthew Merkel. "House of the Crocodile: south Sotho art and history in southern Africa." Diss., University of Iowa, 2011. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2616.
Full textAbstract:
The inability to attribute art objects to the Basotho culture remains a problem for art historians and anthropologists alike. Current publications on the arts of Africa include few, if any, objects attributed to South Sotho-speakers, and often attribute Basotho objects under the broad label of "southern African," rather than linking them to artists from this particular culture. This is largely due to a lack of research on Basotho arts and culture, as well as the widespread belief that the cultures of the region are simply too enmeshed with one another for the arts to be distinguished. However, it is important that we be able to tell the art of one African people from another if we are ever to understand accurately how art expresses peoples' ideas and beliefs about themselves and the world in which they live. Through this project I challenge the label of "southern Africa" that is so often used in attributing art objects from the region, and develop a definitive system of identification for Basotho objects. This system differentiates Basotho arts from works produced by other cultures in southern Africa, and produces the first all-inclusive anthology of South Sotho art history. While my work first and foremost demonstrates the existence of a unique and identifiable Basotho visual style, it also investigates the roles that stylistic characteristics have played in the presentation of southern Sotho identity beginning with the formation of the Basotho polity 200 years ago. Furthermore I identify the contextual and cultural significance of an entire range of Basotho forms, generating a better understanding of Basotho art and culture.
In order to complete this, I use a Morellian approach to identify and define the unique and specific visual aspects found among Basotho arts. This type of analysis is based solely on the external physical characteristics of a work of art, and focuses on the identification of similarities and differences within a group of objects. The resulting data provides a taxonomy for the classification of cultural, regional, and local styles through the isolation of the visual aspects of individual objects. However, because the Morellian methodology takes a morphological approach, I use historical literature and contemporary interviews to connect the function and social context to the objects in order truly to develop an art history of the Basotho. Through this analysis, I identify visual aspects that are unique to southern Sotho arts, and further locate visual signs that assert one's specific clan lineage within the broad "southern Sotho" cultural grouping. This allows me to clearly define the meaning and significance of the "Basotho" cultural moniker, and develop a nuanced understanding of identity amongst southern Sotho peoples.
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Malebana, Motepele Boniface. "An investigation into contemporary black art teacher training programs in South Africa /." The Ohio State University, 1998. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487950153603261.
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Osner, Heather. "An investigation of the history and works of the Keiskamma Art Project." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/13038.
Full textAbstract:
This research study focusses on how and why Carol Hofmeyr began the Keiskamma Art Project in Hamburg, Eastern Cape, as well as the development of the project’s infrastructure, history and detailed business practices and how it has evolved. A chronological detailed pictorial record has been drawn up of the major/monumental works it has produced, its achievements, awards and the accolades it has won. The recurrent narrative themes of HIV/AIDS, Nguni cattle, the Nongquawuse story, local birds, plants and fish which are also discussed. A comparable study, comparing the business practices of the Keiskamma Art Project with the research of Professor Ingrid Stevens on Morris & Co and five other successful, sustained South African Art Projects. Data has been tabulated in an effort to recognise the variances, similarities and differences in an effort to identify a “best practise” business model. Such a model may assist in the development of further art projects, so as to uplift other poverty stricken communities in South Africa. This research study focusses on how and why Carol Hofmeyr began the Keiskamma Art Project in Hamburg, Eastern Cape, as well as the development of the project’s infrastructure, history and detailed business practices and how it has evolved. A chronological detailed pictorial record has been drawn up of the major/monumental works it has produced, its achievements, awards and the accolades it has won. The recurrent narrative themes of HIV/AIDS, Nguni cattle, the Nongquawuse story, local birds, plants and fish which are also discussed. A comparable study, comparing the business practices of the Keiskamma Art Project with the research of Professor Ingrid Stevens on Morris & Co and five other successful, sustained South African Art Projects. Data has been tabulated in an effort to recognise the variances, similarities and differences in an effort to identify a “best practise” business model. Such a model may assist in the development of further art projects, so as to uplift other poverty-stricken communities in South Africa.This research study focusses on how and why Carol Hofmeyr began the Keiskamma Art Project in Hamburg, Eastern Cape, as well as the development of the project’s infrastructure, history and detailed business practices and how it has evolved. A chronological detailed pictorial record has been drawn up of the major/monumental works it has produced, its achievements, awards and the accolades it has won. The recurrent narrative themes of HIV/AIDS, Nguni cattle, the Nongquawuse story, local birds, plants and fish which are also discussed. A comparable study, comparing the business practices of the Keiskamma Art Project with the research of Professor Ingrid Stevens on Morris & Co and five other successful, sustained South African Art Projects. Data has been tabulated in an effort to recognise the variances, similarities and differences in an effort to identify a “best practise” business model. Such a model may assist in the development of further art projects, so as to uplift other poverty stricken communities in South Africa.This research study focusses on how and why Carol Hofmeyr began the Keiskamma Art Project in Hamburg, Eastern Cape, as well as the development of the project’s infrastructure, history and detailed business practices and how it has evolved. A chronological detailed pictorial record has been drawn up of the major/monumental works it has produced, its achievements, awards and the accolades it has won. The recurrent narrative themes of HIV/AIDS, Nguni cattle, the Nongquawuse story, local birds, plants and fish which are also discussed. A comparable study, comparing the business practices of the Keiskamma Art Project with the research of Professor Ingrid Stevens on Morris & Co and five other successful, sustained South African Art Projects. Data has been tabulated in an effort to recognise the variances, similarities and differences in an effort to identify a “best practise” business model. Such a model may assist in the development of further art projects, so as to uplift other poverty stricken communities in South Africa.
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Cook, Shashi Chailey. ""Redress : debates informing exhibitions and acquisitions in selected South African public art galleries (1990-1994)" /." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2009. http://eprints.ru.ac.za/1631/.
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Mguni, Siyakha. "Using the archive to formulate a chronology of rock art in the South-Western Cape, South Africa." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9296.
Full textAbstract:
Includes bibliographical references.<br>With absolute dating still limited, relative chronologies remain useful in contextualising painting interpretations. This study vouches for the archival capacity of rock art and hence the archival perspective can be used to analyse paintings sites to build a framework their chronological and interpretative formulations. The sequence of paintings in the south-western Cape is customarily accepted to span hunter-gatherer phase from over 10,000 B.P.; then herding/pastoralism from ca. 2,000 B.P., and finally the historical-cum-colonial period several centuries ago. Several painting traditions with distinct depiction manners and content are conventionally linked to these periods. This study does not replace but evaluates this schema in order to refine the diverse hunter-gatherer, herder and colonial era painting contexts and history. Using superpositions as one of my analytical tools, the notion of datum aided the referencing and correlation of layered image categories into relative sequence. Visible differences occur between painting traditions, but indistinguishable within a single tradition. Some themes such as elephants, fat-tailed sheep, handprints and possibly geometric forms and dots were found to occur in various levels, even as parts of different traditions. Such divergences were analysed through the archival concept of respect des fonds to clarify graphic variations through the chronology. Probing other sources of information revealed that change from earlier to later imagery phases reflected shifts in the socio-economic, cultural and political circumstances of the region. These histories through time are indicated by the choice and sustenance of particular thematic subjects although their meaning and form changed. The ensuing sequence and interpretation of selected painted themes is a descriptive template reflecting the organic character in the creation, the order of painting phases and cultural continuities and disjunctions in the use of symbolism. This agenda in part reviews the changing social and historical landscape in order to understand variation of painting over time and to project possible interpretative transformations in the sequence. Painting sequences and cultural (dis)continuities are thus intricately entwined and can be disentangled through an analysis that uses the recursive relationship between the archaeological, ethnographic, and historical sources. This amalgamated approach has the ability to produce historicised past narratives and contextual image meanings. The chronology can be understood through first accepting the social, economic, political, and cultural subtleties of painting production.
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Steyn, Pieter Andrew. "The relationship between the concept 'art' and its institutionalisation during the period 1850-1871 in South Africa." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005626.
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This research evolved as part of a personal struggle to understand my role as 'art' student. As such the essay is concerned with both the theory and practice of 'art', and the relationship between the two. It is, however, my experience of the lack of an analysis of the concept 'art' as a social and historical phenomenon, and the suppression of the politics of culture in most fine art courses, that has led me to concentrate on theoretical and political issues, rather than the formal aspects of painting. This essay is therefore not concerned with individual 'works of art', but with the general category 'art' as an organisational form. Despite its limitations, the essay goes beyond the personal by exploring some of the social, political, economic and cultural processes that form the broader social context in which the examination of 'art' should take place.
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Westraadt, Georina. "Mentoring educators to facilitate quality and meaningful art education." Thesis, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11838/1984.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis
Submitted in fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree
Doctor Educationis
in the
Faculty of Education and Social Sciences
at the
CAPE PENINSULA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, 2012<br>Quality and meaningful art education is a very important vehicle for learning and knowledge acquisition which is within the reach of all children in schools.
Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons such as the fact that generalist trained teachers, with no specialised training in art, are responsible for the teaching of art in schools in South Africa, as well as recurring educational change and subsequent uncertainty, lead to the situation that art lessons currently taught at many schools do not answer to the requirements for quality art education. There is a great need for in-service training to address the shortfalls in the teaching of art in schools. When skills building workshops in art education were offered, teachers requested personal interventions on a one-to-one basis with a focus on their own particular strengths and shortcomings. Mentoring the educators seems to be a means of addressing their needs to improve the quality of their teaching of art. In response to a plea from teachers this research project was designed during which inexperienced and insufficiently trained teachers who are responsible for art education were mentored.
Four sites were selected at which the teachers were mentored. There were marked differences in the circumstances and conditions at the four schools, however, from all the sites there was an outcry for assistance in the planning and presentation of quality art lessons and for lesson ideas. The one similarity in all the cases was the fact that they were all generalist trained teachers who are responsible for the teaching of art in their own class and some other classes as well.
The mentoring followed a cyclical process and was adapted for art education. The process comprised the establishment of a relationship in which the mentor and mentee played equally important roles, needs analysis, the mentoring process, which iv
consisted of joint planning of lessons, model teaching, discussions and coaching sessions, reflection and then to return to the beginning of the cycle. The process concluded with a workshop.
The entire process was recorded, reported on and assessed upon termination. Data that was collected at the four sites was analysed according to themes that were developed from the literature on mentoring in education as well as the literature on quality and meaningful art education. Themes that have emerged are the mentoring relationship, the role of the mentor, the role of the mentee, the purpose and goals of the mentoring, the mentoring process and the mentoring outcomes.
The thesis concludes with recommendations for the mentoring of educators in the teaching of quality and meaningful art and suggests that no child should be deprived of the learning opportunities through art that can form part of their primary school experience.
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Swinney, Warrick. "Practices of Listening: (Re)percussions of Sound, Silences and Censorship from (Post-)Apartheid South Africa." Master's thesis, Faculty of Humanities, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/30517.
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This project is situated in the area of sonic art and explores my personal biography in relation to sound, silence, censorship and social control. Using the artistic productions of John Cage, I examine silence as both an object—a recording in a fixed medium—and as a verb directly addressing the question of censorship of the self and of others. The interplay of silencing and silence is expressed in my artistic practice which employs, as audio palate, the silences between the words of significant political speeches from South Africa. As a consequence of this process I have excised all recognizable words in various aural and video works leaving only the 'Cagean’ noise of the silence. I further examine related aspects of silence and silencing through the metaphor of the mute button—a mechanical silencing device—which serves both as a creative tool in a recording studio as well as a censorial
device to prohibit voices being heard. The beating, hitting and silences are all set against a backdrop of (post) apartheid South Africa for the expression of some of my personal and theoretical realisations.
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Brown, Carol. ""Museum spaces in post-apartheid South Africa": the Durban Art Gallery as a case study." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006231.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation examines the history of the Durban Art Gallery from its founding in 1892 until 2004, a decade after the First Democratic Election. While the emphasis is on significant changes that were introduced in the post-1994 period, the earlier section of the study locates these initiatives within a broad historical framework. The collecting policies of the museum as well as its exhibitions and programmes are considered in the light of the institution 's changing social and political context as well as shifting imperatives within a local, regional and national art world. The Durban Art Gallery was established in order to promote a European, and particularly British, culture, and the acquisition and appreciation of art was considered an important element in the formation of a stable society. By providing a broad overview of the early years of the gallery, I identify reasons for the choice of acquisitions and explore the impact and reception of a selection of exhibitions. I investigate changes during the 1960s and 1970s through an examination of the Art South Africa Today exhibitions: in addition to opening up institutional spaces to a racially mixed community, these exhibitions marked the beginning of an imperative to show protest art. I argue that, during the political climate of the 1980s, there was a tension in the cultural arena between, on the one hand, a motivation to retain a Western ideal of 'high art' and, on the other, a drive to accommodate the new forms of people's art and to challenge the values and ideological standpoints that had been instrumental in shaping collecting and exhibiting policies in the South African art arena. I explore this tension through a discussion of the Cape Town Triennial exhibitions, organised jointly by all the official museums, which ran alongside more inclusive and independently curated exhibitions, such as Tributaries, which were shown mainly outside the country. The post-1994 period marked an opening up of spaces, both literally and conceptually. This openness was manifest in the revised strategies that were introduced to show the Durban Art Gallery 's permanent collection as well as in two key public projects that were started - Red Eye @rt and the AIDS 2000 ribbon. Through an examination of these strategies and initiatives, I argue that the central role of the Durban Art Gallery has shifted from being a repository to providing an interactive public space.
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De, Kock-Wiesener Cornelia. "Teken, landskap en kennis : 'n ondersoek na die rol van teken in Suid-Afrikaanse kuns." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/53613.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2003.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis explores the role played by drawings in the creation of knowledge. The study
specifically focuses on drawings of the South African landscape and how it led to
knowledge of our country. The Western perception of the concept of nature in relation to
culture or civilisation is investigated by brief reference to a few periods in Western
history. It is argued that man and nature was separated in Western thought by the
establishment of rational thinking. This concept led to man's exploitation of nature to his
own advantage. The division between man and nature was broadened in the quest for
technological advancement. The first European travellers came to South Africa with a
Western mind set, hoping for better economical conditions. The illustrated traveller's
report reflects the verbal and visual capturing and exploitation of the South African
landscape. It is further argued that European travellers tried to structure the landscape
according to Western aesthetical traditions. Drawings appear to be picturesque but have
radical political, economical and social implications. Colonial depictions created
knowledge, but in fact symbolically legitimise the expansion of power. Until the middle
of the twentieth century Western aesthetic traditions were applied to visual depictions of
the South African landscape. During this period, artists were uncritical of the oppressive
political system and in doing so gave their tacit consent. Ever since the middle of the
twentieth century, several artists voiced their opinions against the unfair policy of the
ruling political party. Visual images asked subtle questions and gave radical judgements;
thus knowledge was created and a contribution made to the freedom of all South
Africans. My drawings of South African landscapes are to be understood against this
theoretical background. I use drawings to ask questions about the relationship between
the visual image and the establishment of knowledge. I also refer to the relationship
between the original and the copy, reality, the photo and the drawing. I conclude the
following: drawings lead to the creation of knowledge and landscape depictions have
implications of power. The solution to this problem lies, in the end, once more III
drawings.My depictions of South African landscapes are given as an answer.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis is 'n ondersoek na die rol wat visuele beelde kan speel in die oordrag van idees.
Daar word spesifiek gekyk na hoe tekeninge van die Suid-Afrikaanse landskap gelei het tot
die totstandkoming van kennis oor ons land. Die Westerse verstaan van die begrip natuur in
verhouding tot kultuur of beskawing word ondersoek deur kortliks te verwys na 'n paar
periodes gedurende die Westerse geskiedenis. Daar word aangevoer dat Westerse denke die
mens en die natuur van mekaar geskei het deur die instelling van rasionele denke. So het
daar 'n geloof in menslike rede ontstaan. Dié beskouing het daartoe gelei dat die mens die
natuur begin uitbuit het tot eie voordeel. Die kloof tussen mens en natuur het al hoe dieper
geword in 'n strewe na tegnologiese vooruitgang. Die eerste Europese reisigers het vanuit 'n
Westerse verwysingsraamwerk na Suid-Afrika gekom met die hoop op beter ekonomiese
vooruitsigte. Die geïllustreerde reisverslag weerspieël die inneming en uitbuiting van die
Suid-Afrikaanse landskap visueel en verbaal. Daar word aangevoer dat Europese reisigers
die landskap deur middel van tekeninge, uitgevoer volgens Westerse estetiese tradisies,
probeer struktureer het. Tekeninge kom skilderagtig voor, maar het radikale politiese,
ekonomiese en sosiale implikasies. Koloniale tekeninge het kennis geskep en in werklikheid
magsuitbreiding simbolies gelegitimeer. Westerse estetiese tradisies is tot die middel van die
twintigste eeu toegepas op visuele uitbeeldings van die Suid-Afrikaanse landskap.
Gedurende dié tydperk het kunstenaars die onderdrukkende, heersende politieke stelsel in
werklikheid ondersteun deur totaalonkrities daarteenoor te staan. Teen die middel van die
twintigste eeu het verskillende kunstenaars in opstand gekom teen die onregverdige beleid
van die regerende party. Visuele beelde is gebruik om subtiele vrae te stel sowel as radikale
uitsprake te lewer en het so kennis geskep en bygedra tot die bevryding van alle Suid-
Afrikaners. My tekeninge van Suid-Afrikaanse landskappe moet teen dié teoretiese
agtergrond gelees word. Ek gebruik teken om vrae steloor die verhouding tussen die visuele
beeld en kennis wat so tot stand kom. Daar word verwys na die verhouding tussen
oorspronklike en kopie, werklikheid, foto en tekening. Die gevolgtrekking is dat tekeninge
kan lei tot die totstandkoming van kennis en dat uitbeeldings van landskappe
magsimplikasies kan hê. Die oplossing vir hierdie probleem lê uiteindelik weer in tekeninge.
My uitbeeldings van Suid-Afrikaanse landskappe word as antwoord gebied.
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Hirst, Manton Myatt. "The healer's art : Cape Nguni diviners in the townships of Grahamstown." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001601.
Full textAbstract:
This is a study of Cape Nguni diviners practising in the townships of Grahamstown where, during the 1970s, there was a large and active concentration of diviners treating clients from the locality, the rural areas and even the large urban centres further afield. The study situates local diviners in the socio-economic, cultural and religious context of contemporary township Iife during the 1970s (see chapter 1 and section 2.1). The personalities and socio-economic circumstances of diviners (and herbalists) are described as well as their case-loads, the various problems they treat, the relations between them and their clients, the economics of healing and the ethics pertaining to the profession (see chapter 2) . Chapter three focuses on the various problems and afflictions - which are largely of an interpersonal nature - suffered by those who are eventually inducted as diviners and the ritual therapy this necessarily entails. Here we see how the diviner, what Lewis (1971) terms a 'wounded healer', becomes an expert in interpersonal and social relations as a result of suffering problems - largely connected to the family but not necessarily limited to it - in interpersonal relations and that require a ritual, and thus social, prophylaxis. The main theoretical argument is that the diviner, qua healer, functions as a hybrid of Levi-Strauss' s bricoleur and Castaneda's 'man of knowledge' artfully combining the ability of the former to invert, mirror or utilise analogies from linguistics to make everything meaningful and the ability of the latter to creatively bend reality . The diviner's cosmology is described in terms of a 'handy', limited but extensive cultural code/repertoire of signs, symbols and metaphors that is utilised in getting the message across to others and in which animals bear the main symbolic load (see chapter 4). This leads logically to a reappraisal of Hammond-Tooke's (1975b) well-known model of Cape Nguni symbolic structure particularly in so far as it pertains to the way in which diviners classify animals, both wild and domestic (see section 4.6). A striking evocation and confirmation of the view argued here, namely of the diviner as bricoleur/'man of knowledge', is contained in chapter five dealing with an analysis of the diviner's 'river' myth and the context, form and content of the divinatory consultation itself. Finally, the conclusions, arising out of this study of contemporary Cape Nguni diviners in town, are evaluated in the ligrht of Lewis's (1966, 1971, 1986) deprivation hypothesis of spirit possession (see chapter 6)
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Garisch, Margaret Isabel. "Consuming pasts : imaging food as Identity and (post)memory in post-apartheid South Africa." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018556.
Full textAbstract:
This mini-thesis interprets the convergence of food and memory and explores dialectical processes associating food, identity and (post)memory, particularly in the context of post-apartheid South Africa. Considering works by prominent South African Artists Berni Searle and Churchill Madikida as well as my own artistic practise and usage of food as conceptual medium, this study considers the converging effects of food, identity and memory, together with the materiality of food, from a fine arts perspective, as particularly rich and developing arena for memory work
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Blake, Tamlin. "South African botanical art : a study of nineteenth- and twentieth-century imagery." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/52458.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2001.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Botanical art consists of a complex combination of scientific fact and aesthetic awareness, and is
concerned with more than the realistic representation of a plant and its flowers. It goes beyond
the visual description of scientific information and speaks about the contributions artists have
made through history to the conventions of both art and science. It contains a unique visual
language, conventions which we read intelligently and an evolved tradition, and it is this
language and the development of these conventions within the genre of South African botanical
art, which this thesis investigates.
In South Africa botanical art developed as a direct result of European interest in the flora and
the colonisation of this country by the West. A brief history of responses to South African
plants is discussed in the Introduction in order to begin to establish an understanding of this
tradition and to contextualise the contributions made by 19th-and 20th -century South African
botanical artists.
Now that postmodernity has called for the reassessment and questioning of 'given truths',
alternative ways of assessing botanical art are slowly evolving. Through study and the
comparison of botanical art and artists of South Africa their evaluation as artists is reconsidered.
This issue of defining art and artists is the subject of Chapter One of this study.
Some of the factors that have a bearing on this include: relationships between text and image; art
and science; art and illustration; and how society's expectations of gender roles affect the
production of botanical art.
In order to establish a context from which to discuss plant imagery in South Africa, it is
important to study the history and development of botanical art in this country. Chapter Two
discusses the emergence and development of this art form and its artists, starting with a short
description of people and events from the 1600s and then takes a comprehensive look at
developments in the 19th and 20m centuries. For the artists working within the genre of botanical art, the conventions and inventions are
often explicitly formulated. It is an art based on the logic, scrutiny and informative tradition of
science, where the main objective is to represent a plant's structural essence. Fundamental to our
response to botanical art, however, is the style and technique employed by the artist. Chapter
Three is devoted to a detailed discussion of the work of selected contemporary South African
botanical art and artists. By comparing their work it is possible to establish trends and
developments in representation and the role played by mediums and techniques in this highly
skilled art form.
Since this research has both a theoretical and a practical component, Chapter Four is devoted to
discussion of my own work within the botanical art genre. I describe and illustrate several related
series of paintings and explore established conventions and ways of developing my own stylistic
identity as a botanical artist.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Botaniese kuns bestaan uit 'n komplekse kombinasie van wetenskaplike feite en estetiese
bewustheid, en is gemoeid met baie meer as net die realistiese voorstelling van 'n plant en sy
blomme. Dit gaan verder as net die blote visuele uitbeelding van wetenskaplike informasie, en
behels die bydraes wat kunstenaars deur die geskiedenis tot die konvensies van beide kuns en die
wetenskap gemaak het. Botaniese kuns besit 'n unieke visuele taal, konvensies wat intelligent
gelees word, en 'n ontwikkelde tradisie. Hierdie tesis ondersoek juis hierdie spesiale taal en
ontwikkeling van konvensies binne die genre van Suid-Afrikaanse botaniese kuns.
Botaniese kuns in Suid-Afrika het ontwikkel as In direkte gevolg van Europese belangstelling in
die flora, en Westerse kolonialisasie van hierdie land. In die Inleidingword daar kortliks gekyk na
die geskiedenis van die hantering van Suid-Afrikaanse plante, en het ten doelom eerstens 'n
begrip van hierdie tradisie daar te stel, en tweedens om die bydraes van 19de en 20ste eeuse
Suid-Afrikaanse botaniese kunstenaars te kontekstualiseer.
Sedert Postmodernisme die herevaluering en bevraagtekening van gegewewe waarhede
aangewakker het, is die ontwikkeling van alternatiewe maniere van kyk na botaniese kuns stadig
besig om plaas te vind. Deur die bestudering en vergelyking van botaniese kuns en kunstenaars
van Suid-Afrika, word die botaniese kunstenaar se status as kunstenaar uitgelig. Hierdie kwessie
oor die defmieëring van kuns en kunstenaars is die onderwerp van Hoofstuk 1 van hierdie
werkstuk. 'n Paar van die faktore wat In invloed op laasgenoemde het, sluit in: verhoudinge
tussen beeld en teks; kuns en wetenskap; kuns en illustrasie; en hoe kwessies van geslag soos
waargeneem deur die samelewing die produsering van botaniese kuns beïnvloed.
Dit is belangrik om die geskiedenis en ontwikkeling van botaniese kuns in Suid-Afrika te
bestudeer, sodat daar 'n konteks geskep kan word waarbinne die afbeelding van plante in hierdie
land bespreek kan word. Hoofstuk 2 behandel die totstandkoming en ontwikkeling van hierdie
kunsvorm en sy kunstenaars, en begin met 'n kort beskrywing van mense en gebeurtenisse van
die 1600s wat gevolg word deur 'n uitgebreide kyk na ontwikkelinge gedurende die 19de en 20ste
eeue. Vir die kunstenaars wat werk binne die genre van botaniese kuns, is die konvensies en
bevindings van die medium dikwels breedvoerig geformuleer. Dit is 'n kunsvorm gebasseer op
die logiese, navorsbare en insiggewende tradisie van die wetenskap, waar die hoofdoel die
voorstelling van 'n plant se strukturele essensie is. Fundementeel in die benadering tot botaniese
kuns is die styl en tegniek wat deur die kunstenaar gebruik word. Hoofstuk 3 word gewy aan 'n
gedetailleerde bespreking van die werk van geselekteerde kontemporêre Suid-Afrikaanse
bot~iese kuns en kunstenaars. Deur hul werk te vergelyk is dit moontlik om tendense en
ontwikkelings in die voorstelling en aanbieding van botaniese kuns te bepaal, en wat die rol van
verskillende mediums en tegnieke in hierdie hoogs geskoolde kunsvorm behels.
Weens die feit dat hierdie navorsing uit 'n teoretiese en praktiese komponent bestaan, word
Hoofstuk 4 gewy aan 'n bespreking van my praktiese werk binne die genre van botaniese kuns.
Ek beskryf en illustreer verskeie verwante reekse werke en kyk na bestaande konvensies en die
maniere hoe my eie stilistiese identiteit as botaniese kunstenaar kan ontwikkel binne die medium.
37
Arbi, Linda Margaret. "Unearthed : personifications of widowhood and acts of memory : volume 1 and 2." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002225.
Full textAbstract:
By researching visual traditions of representing widows in relation to a social role, I explore how these may be related to processes of mourning and memory. My study begins with an historical reading and, along with an analysis of Renaissance widow portraiture, I trace the experiences of widows in the Cape of Good Hope. For the purposes of this thesis, I have selected images of widows to investigate memory-work particularly when speaking of loss. I re-view these memory processes through recent historical and art historical discourse with reference to contemporary South African artworks in order to understand how public memory is formed by way of visual documentation. These narratives around widowhood have informed the subject matter for my Master’s exhibition and shed light on my own experience as a widow. The interaction between objects and memory are of particular interest and manifest in my studio art practice.
38
West, Soalabo. "The Decommissioning of Offshore Oil and Gas Installations and Structures in Nigeria and South Africa in the context of international best practices." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/4498.
Full textAbstract:
This work attempts to examine the laws relating to the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas installations and structures in Nigeria and South Africa, in the context of international best practices as typified by the regimes in operation in Norway and the United Kingdom. The extent to which these countries have met their obligations under international law will also be considered; being that states' liberty to design their laws applicable to the continental shelf and exclusive economic zone is limited by their obligations under international law.
39
Brinkman, Lynn M. "From Apartheid to HIV/AIDS: The Construction of Memory, Identity, and Communication Through Public Murals in South Africa." Bowling Green, Ohio : Bowling Green State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=bgsu1174923130.
Full text
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Stolp, Mareli. "Contemporary performance practice of art music in South Africa : a practice-based research enquiry." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/71885.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.<br>Sensitive areas within this text have been blacked out. Please refer to the attachment.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this dissertation, I examine contemporary South African art music performance practice and the social function it fulfils. Performance practice is understood in this study to mean an art practice or cultural item constituted by three types of 'role-players': performers of art music, composers of works in the art music genre and audiences that assimilate and respond to these works when performed. My own position as a performing artist in South Africa has suggested most of the research questions and problems dealt with in this dissertation, which was approached as a practice-based research study. Practice-based research, an emergent kind of research which aims at integrating practical and scholarly work, is becoming increasingly prevalent in academe internationally, although the present study is one of the first examples of such an approach in South Africa.
Drawing on contemporary interpretations of the theories of phenomenology articulated by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, my position as a performer of art music in South Africa and the personal experiences I have had as a practitioner within this art practice are interrogated. While I was involved in a variety of practical engagements during the course of this study, all of which have contributed on some level to the final research product, the research design comprised five 'performance projects' that were designed to interrogate specific issues in contemporary art music performance practice in South Africa. The knowledge gained through these performance projects are presented together with theoretical work in this dissertation. An attempt is made to explicate these subjective experiences gained through practice and interrogate them through the application of social theory, ultimately translating them into an objective research outcome which is presented discursively. In this sense, the research project is approached according to a two-pronged strategy: subjective experiences generated through practice are examined through the use of social theory, ultimately resulting in a discursively articulated research outcome.
I suggest in this dissertation that art music practice in contemporary South Africa has been and has remained a cultural territory largely inhabited by white South Africans. I further argue that this practice has shown little transformation since the end of apartheid in South Africa, in spite of the political, social and cultural transformation that has characterized the country since the beginning of democracy in 1994. Drawing on the theories of Homi Bhabha and Regula Qureshi, I posit that contemporary art music performance practice is providing an ideological counter-environment to predominant socio-cultural realities in post-apartheid South Africa. Qureshi suggests that the art music practice of a society 'constitutes a meaningful, cultural world for those who inhabit it'(Qureshi 2000: 26). Such a 'world within a society' is here interpreted as providing a counter-environment within which white South African identity can be articulated, negotiated and propagated.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie proefskrif ondersoek ek die uitvoeringspraktyk van kontemporêre kunsmusiek in Suid-Afrika en die sosiale funksie wat dit vervul. Uitvoeringspraktyk word in hierdie studie geïnterpreteer as ‘n kunspraktyk of kulturele item wat uit drie 'rol-spelers' bestaan: uitvoerders van kunsmusiek, komponiste van werke in die kunsmusiek genre en gehore wat kunsmusiek assimileer en daarop reageer wanneer hierdie werke uitgevoer word. My eie posisie as uitvoerende kunstenaar het gelei tot die navorsingsvrae en navorsingsprobleme wat hierdie studie informeer. As sulks neem hierdie studie die vorm aan van ‘n praktyk-gebasseerde navorsingsstudie. Praktyk-gebasseerde navorsing is ‘n ontwikkelende soort navorsing wat internasionaal toenemend beoefen word. Hierdie studie is een van die eerste Suid-Afrikaanse voorbeelde van hierdie tipe navorsing in musiek.
Die fenomenologiese teorieë van Edmund Husserl en Maurice Merleau-Ponty is gebruik om my persoonlike ervarings as uitvoerder van oorwegend kunsmusiek in Suid-Afrika te kontekstualiseer. My betrokkenheid by verskeie praktiese projekte gedurende die studietydperk, sowel as vyf praktiese projekte wat spesifiek vir die doeleindes van hierdie studie onderneem is, het deurgaans die studie geïnformeer. Hierdie projekte is aangepak om die bestudering van spesifieke aspekte van Suid-Afrikaanse uitvoeringspraktyk van kunsmusiek te fasiliteer. Die kennis wat deur middel van die praktiese werk ingewin is, is deurgaans in hierdie proefskrif met teoretiese werk versterk. Daar is gepoog om die subjektiewe ervarings van die uitvoerder aan te vul deur die toepassing van sosiale toerie, met die uiteindelike doel om hierdie ervarings in ‘n objektiewe en diskursief-artikuleerbare navorsingsresultaat te omskep. Die navorsing in hierdie proefskrif volg dus ‘n tweeledige benadering: subjektiewe, persoonlike ervarings wat deur praktyk gegenereer word, word deur middel van sosiale teorie benader, wat lei tot die uiteindelike navorsingsresultaat soos in die proefskrif aangebied.
Ek stel dit in hierdie proefskrif dat kunsmusiekpraktyk in kontemporêre Suid-Afrika min bewyse van transformasie toon, ten spyte van die veranderende politiese- en sosio-kulturele omstandighede in Suid-Afrika sedert 1994. Dié praktyk word steeds gekenmerk deur deelname en ondersteuning vanuit die wit bevolkingsgroep. Die teorieë van Homi Bhabha en Regula Qureshi word gebruik om die argument te onderskryf dat kontemporêre kunsusiekpraktyk ‘n omgewing skep wat dien as ideologiese teenpool vir die sosio-kulturele realiteite van Suid-Afrika vandag. Qureshi is van mening dat ‘n gemeenskap se kunsmusiekpraktyk ‘n 'betekenisvolle, kulturele wereld skep vir die wat dit bewoon' (Qureshi 2000: 26). Hierdie 'wereld binne ‘n gemeenskap' word in hierdie proefskrif vertolk as ‘n 'ideologiese teen-omgewing' waarvandaan wit Suid-Afrikaanse identiteit geartikuleer, onderhandel en bevorder kan word.
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"South Kensington to South Africa: art education in government elementary schools and schools of art in South Africa 1800-1910." Thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/17842.
Full text
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Schmidt, Leoni. "Aspects of South African art criticism." Thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/18618.
Full textAbstract:
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University
of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, for the degree of Master
of Arts in Fine Arts
Johnnesburg 1976<br>Current art critical practice in South Africa has not been investigated previously. Statements have been made with regard to the low standards of art criticism in this country (see the introduction to this dissertation) However, such statements have not been motivated by an analysis is of examples of work contributed by South. This fact partly determined the decision to African art critics investigate current art critical practice in this country .
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Johannes, Louise Renee. "Copyright and art work in South Africa." Thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/10858.
Full textAbstract:
It is in the nature and tradition of artists to use the works and ideas of other
artists within the context of their own work. Artists find copyright law restrictive
and experience difficulty in determining where to draw the line between using
other artistic works as inspiration and exploiting the skill and labour of others. In
addition, the maxim that there is no copyright in ideas, only in the expression of
ideas, is not as simple as it appears. This report is aimed at assisting the visual
artist in aspects of copyright law, specifically in relation to the distinction between
ideas and the expression of ideas in a material form.
The method used in the research is an analysis of South African legislation and
cases that illustrate the law in relation to ideas and the expression of ideas in an
artistic work. As a result of the dearth of case law and literature in South Africa
dealing with copyright and visual art, reference is made to American case law and
the defence of fair use of an artistic work, with reference to artist Jeff Koons.
The findings of the study are that the South African Courts are not in favour of
allowing artists to monopolise ideas or combinations of ideas and the definitive
threshold of originality is low. To constitute an infringement of an artistic work it
is the artistic features or attributes of the work that have to be transformed or
adapted, not some concept, that it conveys. An artist is therefore free to use the
ideas of other artists, provided that such ideas are expressed in a material form
and they do not form a substantial part of the work of another.
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Botha, Ferdi, Jeanette D. Snowball, and Brett Scott. "Art investment in South Africa: portfolio diversification and art market efficiency." 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64794.
Full textAbstract:
Art has been suggested as a good way to diversify investment portfolios during times of financial uncertainty. The argument is that art exhibits different risk and return characteristics to conventional investments in other asset classes. The new Citadel art price index offered the opportunity to test this theory in the South African context. Moreover, this paper tests whether art prices are efficient. The Citadel index uses the hedonic regression method with observations drawn from the top 100, 50 and 20 artists by sales volume, giving approximately 29 503 total auction observations. The Index consists of quarterly data from the period 2000Q1 to 2013Q3. A vector autoregression of the art price index, Johannesburg stock exchange all-share index, house price index, and South African government bond index were used. Results show that, when there are increased returns on the stock market in a preceding period and wealth increases, there is a change in the Citadel art price index in the same direction. No significant difference was found between the house price index and the art price index, or between the art and government bond price indices. The art market is also found to be inefficient, thereby exacerbating the risk of investing in art. Overall, the South African art market does not offer the opportunity to diversify portfolios dominated by either property, bonds, or shares.
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Geldenhuys, Amber-Jade. "Safe as houses: art and (in)security." Thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/16976.
Full textAbstract:
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
of Masters of Arts in Fine Arts by Dissertation.
Johannesburg, 2014.<br>This practice based research project engages with the theme of safety and security
through the conceptualisation and production of sculptures and drawings. The
exhibition takes the form of an installation which is the primary source of interrogation
into the broad topic of increasing securitisation in the contemporary urban environment.
The components of this research project include 1) a body of practical artwork which
explores the theme of safety and security in Johannesburg and 2) a dissertation which
locates this exploration in theoretical, critical, historical perspectives. There is a
particular focus on two other securitised cities namely São Paulo and London in
relationship to the work of artists Marcelo Cidade and Mona Hatoum respectively,
specifically sculpture/installation, which engages thematically and materially with
notions of power, surveillance and security that responds to their immediate
surroundings. The Johannesburg security context and works by the design team Dokter
and Misses are analysed and finally a documentation and critical reflection of my own
creative work produced in the context of this study.
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Kearney, Alison. "Beyond the readymade: found objects in contemporary South African art." Thesis, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/20776.
Full textAbstract:
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of philosophy.
March 2016.<br>The use of found objects is evident in a range of contemporary artmaking practices. The use of found objects can, however, no longer be understood as a rupture from tradition as they were in the early decades of the twentieth century when they were first used by Picasso and later by Duchamp, because found objects have become part of a longer genealogy in art making. A new approach is needed in order to understand the significance of the use of found objects in contemporary art. This study explores the significance of the use of found objects in selected contemporary South African artworks in order to move beyond an understanding of the use of found objects as the anti-art gestures like those of the historical and neo-avant-gardes. I propose that a shift in focus, from the idea of the found objects as anti-art, to an exploration of the changing ontological status of the found object as it moves through different social fields is one such new approach. Chapter one introduces the study, while chapter two outlines the research methods and theoretical frameworks used. Chapter three explores the meanings that objects accrue in everyday practices, while chapter four focussed on the difference between artworks and more quotidian objects. Pursuing the question of the manner in which the ontological status of the object shifts as it enters into and becomes part of the field of exhibition, chapter five considers the ways in which meanings are constructed for objects in the field of exhibition through the conventions of display. I explore the ways in which artists make use of or invert these conventions as a means of challenging the field of exhibition. Acknowledging that the objects are also active agents within this process, in chapter six I explore the manner in which the materiality of found objects contributes to the meaning of the artworks, and by extension, I consider what new possibilities of meaning a focus on the materiality yields. In the final chapter, I use the concept of the everyday to draw the themes that have emerged throughout this study together. I conclude by situating the contemporary South African art practices within the genealogy of the avant-garde.
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Gower, James A. "Art therapy: Perspectives of South African psychologists." Thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/4913.
Full textAbstract:
Art therapy is a method that has a long global history as a treatment alternative when
conventional verbal psychotherapy and even pharmacotherapy have failed to facilitate
improvement. It helps access, give form to, and integrate experiences, memories, and
emotions that cannot be directly verbalised. Art therapy is the creative expression of
the client through the use of art making and the subsequent artefacts within therapy.
Art therapy is an opportunity for the therapist to access recesses of the client’s mind
that may otherwise be hidden. This enables the therapist to utilise these revelations
and the artefacts produced strategically within therapy.
In South Africa art therapy as a profession does not have a distinct category of its own
under the Health Professions Counsel of South Africa (HPCSA), and is not included
in psychology training courses at tertiary level. In spite of this, some South African
psychologists do use it as a modality in therapy. These psychologists are the subjects
of this study. They provided important information regarding the possible uses of art
in therapy from a unique South African perspective.
The participants in this study have responded each in uniquely favourable terms to
questions surrounding the value and benefit of art as a tool of psychological therapy.
This unequivocal professional concurrence, while derived from a limited research
sample, suggests that art therapy, though severely neglected, holds enormous potential
for positive application within the South African context. The interpretations,
definitions and applications of art therapy by each of these therapists are admittedly in
no way as profound as those evidenced in the international literature examined in the
course of this study, yet a vast resource of innovative perspectives, informative
considerations along with fresh indicators towards areas for potential future research
have come to the fore.
According to the participants in this study, art therapy does not receive enough
attention in the South African psychological arena. Areas specifically identified by
the interviewees in which art therapy can play a role include: group work;
preventative work; the crossing of language barriers; providing therapy to the greater
population and previously disadvantaged groups; shortening therapy; and trauma
work.
Art therapy is not limited to age, nor by the presenting problem. It is engaging, and
facilitates effective communication. The artefacts produced can serve as historic
records of therapy, allowing the therapist and client to recollect the process. Colour
can play an important part in therapy, yet the client’s unequivocal personal
interpretation of colour should be the focus. Art therapy is not static and facilitates
therapeutic movement, client involvement and responsibility.
The art activity and artefact provides a concrete rather than verbal medium through
which a person can achieve both conscious and unconscious expression and, as such,
can be used as a valuable agent for therapeutic change. The image is tangible and
serves as constant reminder and anchor to the clients conflict or problem, yet moves it
to a safe distance outside the client.
Art therapy is implemented in many different ways within South Africa, as is the case
internationally.
Although a multicultural South African society seems to be different in many
contexts, the implementation and occurrence of art therapy appears to be fairly
unchanged, and art may be the universal therapeutic language.
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Desai, Desmond. "The ratiep art form of South African muslims." Thesis, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/8929.
Full textAbstract:
The ratiep is a peculiarly South African trance-linked art form characterised by stabbings with sharp objects to the arms and other bodily parts, the piercing of the ear-lobes, the cheeks and the tongue by alwaan (skewers), the performance of certain standard dhikr to the accompaniment of the rebanna and dhol, and a highly stylized movement. The ratiep art form is rooted in Sufi Muslim traditions. Similar trance-linked art forms, called the dabos and Sufi ceremonies, exist in Sumatra and Syria respectively. These are all linked to Abdul Kader al-Jilani, founder of the Qadiriyyah Sufi fraternity. The South African variant of the art form also characterised by unusual self-mutilating acts, has been practised for more than 200 years, and started
amongst the Cape Muslims. The literature provides historical evidence of the controversy regarding its "Islamic" nature,
which has existed since the latter half of the previous century amongst South African Muslims. It has become dissociated from Islamic practices generally, and is regarded as bidat (innovatory). The South African Indian ratiep performance relates to its Cape Muslim counterpart. Both subgenres show a special relationship to the different genres and styles of music
constituting South African Islamic and 'Cape Malay' music which are unique outflows of the cultural heritage, the social milieu and the enslaved, deprived and indentured work circumstances of early South African Muslims. In its vocal style the khalifa performance relates to qiraat and the secular nederlandslied; the latter is a transitional form between the sacred orthodox qiraat and the secular homophonic oulied. A voorwerk and giyerwee sharif precede respectively the Cape Muslim performance and its Indian counterpart. Like the ratiep, they have well-defined textual and musical forms. Ratiep musical instruments. the characteristic movement, the praboes (sharp instruments) and the bank with its decorations of flags add to the totality of the ratiep performance. Metaphysical and medical considerations are important in understanding the nature and purpose of the ratiep performance and the absence of bleeding; the results achieved thus far are still inconclusive. Ratiep acts are often seen as skilful swordplay and exhibitionism, rather than a physical testimony of faith.<br>Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, 1993.
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Coutinho, Michelle. "Art therapy with stroke patients in a group context." Thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10210/5702.
Full textAbstract:
M.A.<br>"Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability in all races in South Africa" (Fritz & Penn, 1992, p 1). It has devastating effects, and may impact on every aspect of the person's functioning. Research shows that depression is common after stroke, becoming more of a problem with time, and having a greater effect on quality of life than the actual disability (Lezak, 1995). Despite such evidence psychologists have played a very limited role in the rehabilitation of this group. Those with communication problems especially have been excluded from research and therapy, which usually require competence with language to be successful. This study attempts to find an alternative method of research and therapy in order to include this group. Following the model of learned helplessness (Seligman, in, Bleiberg, 1986), it was proposed that the unavoidable, inescapable effects of stroke lead to feelings of helplessness, which are also impossible to escape, and the person soon looses the motivation to attempt to control the situation. This then leads to depression. A method of therapy which breaks this cycle, and allows for the person to experience how their actions do have an effect on their lives is needed. In addition to this, an alternative means of self expression for those with communication difficulties needs to be provided. Art therapy was found to address the problems presented by this group (Dailey, 1984). It has proved useful with other populations that have not been able to benefit from traditional psychotherapy. It becomes an alternative means of self expression for those whose communication ability is compromised. It is accessible to most people, as it only requires the ability to make marks on paper. A theme centred, art therapy approach was therefore chosen for the study. The aims of the study were; to create a therapeutic milieu which allowed for self expression, specifically the expression of emotions, which included all the participants; to investigate the effects of introducing an opportunity for self expression on self concept and group process; and to look at the themes which emerge from the art. The participants were members of a pre-existing support group for stroke survivors. A quasiexperimental design was used. The Draw a Person Test, was administered pre and post intervention. Additional information was gathered using the Beck's Depression Inventory and a demographic questionnaire. This study uses a qualitative method, which includes information regarding the researcher's experience, and is interpreted from the researcher's perspective. It was found that art therapy had a positive effect on self concept. It influenced group process, as participants who were previously marginalised became more central. Numerous themes emerged, some which were specific to individuals, but others that were of relevance to the group as a whole. It proved rewarding for the researcher, both as a therapist and in terms of her relationship with her father who is a stroke survivor with aphasia. Art therapy therefore seems to be a useful tool to be used with this group that has traditionally been excluded from therapy and research. It is suggested that further research would be useful, and suggestions regarding future research are discussed.
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Pretorius, Annette Sophia. "The functions of public art in post-apartheid South Africa." Thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/2175.
Full textAbstract:
Student Number : 0419845J -
MA research report -
School of Arts -
Faculty of Humanities<br>The aim of this research report is to explore the extent to which public art in postapartheid,
democratic South Africa may contribute both to urban regeneration
and nation building as well as the extent to which contemporary African
monumental public art could reflect African heritage and traditions (Nettleton
2003:3). Another issue that is explored is the role of patronage in determining the
function of public art in post-apartheid South Africa.
Case studies in the form of two examples of post-apartheid public, namely the
Freedom Park and the Constitution Hill projects art are used to explore the
functions of public art in South Africa.
In summary this research report therefore analyses:
• The nature and function of public art-historical issues;
• The practical issues affecting the production of public art in post-apartheid
South Africa;
• The socio-political factors that mitigate for or against the ability of public
art to function effectively in the post-apartheid South African context; and
• How these functions feed into the broader issues of making a contribution
in a demographically complex, post-apartheid South Africa.