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.

Thesis (MA(VA))--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The gap between the theoretical and practical aspects of art education is a trend that is discussed and investigated in both the South African and the global context. In 2009, I found that my students at Elkanah House were not doing particularly well academically, and that they displayed a negative attitude towards the theoretical component of Visual Arts. This is not a unique phenomenon. Steers (2009) refers to the gap between theoretical and practical components in his article on globalisation in visual culture. According to Steers, a gap developed in various educational settings between the content and how it is practically carried out in the orthodox school curriculum. In addition, the publications Art Education and Art Education Journal issued a call for articles on the same topic in 2013. To address the problem, I systematically developed an art curriculum from grade 10 based on the praxis of the theoretical and practical components of teaching art at my school from 2010 onwards. This curriculum includes the following: 1) experiential learning and alternative learning perspectives; 2) critical and reflective thinking; 3) development of theory through practical investigations and experiences; 4) somatic knowledge, qualitative reasoning and communicative knowledge; 5) material thinking, learning through the use of materials and body; 6) cohesive discovery of knowledge; and 7) citizenship development. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how students experienced an art curriculum that integrated theory and practice through various projects. The investigation was based on an empirical research method utilizsing a qualitative approach and a case study design. In the research, a combination of themes including various learning theories in the process of experiential learning; development of critical thinking and reflection; development of critical citizenship education; and praxis as a concept in an art curriculum were examined to narrow the gap between the theoretical and practical components of Visual Arts. The results of the research indicated that the students’ academic performance improved and aspects of critical reflective thinking, critical citizenship and awareness of the wider context in which students find themselves had also been enhanced. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die gaping tussen teoretiese en praktiese komponente in kunsonderwys is ʼn tendens wat in beide Suid-Afrikaanse en globale kontekste bespreek en ondersoek word. In 2009 het ek gevind dat my studente by Elkanah House nie akademies goed vaar nie, en ook ʼn negatiewe houding teenoor die teoretiese komponent van Visuele Kunste toon. Dit is nie ʼn unieke tendens nie. Steers (2009) verwys in sy artikel oor globalisering in visuele kultuur na die gaping wat tussen die teorie en die praktyk ontstaan het. Volgens Steers het daar in die ortodokse skool kurrikulum ‘n gaping in verskeie onderwyssituasies ontwikkel tussen die inhoud en dit wat prakties uitgevoer word. Die publikasies Art Education en Art Education Journal het ook in 2013 ʼn beroep gedoen vir artikels oor dieselfde onderwerp. Ek het in 2010 ʼn kunskurrikulum met praksis van die teoretiese en praktiese komponente stelselmatig vanaf graad 10 ontwikkel om die probleem van skeiding tussen teorie en prakties by die skool waar ek klasgee aan te spreek. Hierdie kurrikulum het die volgende ingesluit: 1) ervaringsleer en alternatiewe leerperspektiewe; 2) kritiese en reflektiewe denke; 3) ontwikkeling van teorie deur praktiese ondersoeke en ervaringe; 4) somatiese kennis, kwalitatiewe redenering en kommunikatiewe weet; 5) materiaal-gebaseerde denke, leer deur gebruik te maak van materiale en liggaam; 6) samehangende ontdekking van kennis; en 7) burgerskapontwikkeling. Die doel van hierdie studie was om ‘n ondersoek te doen na hoe studente die bogenoemde kunskurrikulum vir die integrasie van teorie en prakties deur verskeie projekte ervaar het. Die ondersoek was gebaseer op ʼn empiriese navorsingsmetode deur gebruik te maak van ʼn kwalitatiewe benadering en ʼn gevallestudie-ontwerp. Temas soos die verbetering van motivering; invloede op die vak Visuele Kunste en ander vakgebiede; groter bewuswording van plek in die gemeenskap en aanpassing van onderrigstyl deur die fasiliteerder is in die ondersoek geïdentifiseer. Die resultate van die navorsing het aangedui dat studente se akademiese prestasie nie net verbeter het nie, maar dat aspekte van kritiese reflektiewe denke, kritiese burgerskap, asook bewuswording van die breër konteks waarin die kunsstudente hulself bevind, verbreed is.

This document is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree: Master of Architecture (Professional) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, in the year 2014. / This thesis explores theories of escapism and applies them to the Johannesburg precinct in the form of a socially interactive public space. Our day to day banal realities do not satisfy our innermost desires, as a result; we choose to disconnect from our realties. We often become passive consumers in a world dominated by production, fuelled by retail advertising and marketing media, and in turn we frequently overlook the shaping of our own social existence and choosing healthy forms of flight. I feel that our city does not provide opportunities for escape in the form of urban rituals and therefore a sense of belonging is inadequately specified. I aim to provide a positive form of escape which supports urban rituals, and thereby define a place within Johannesburg. A public space enables social interaction and individual exploration and is therefore a temporary from of escape. Our city is often perceived as dangerous and unaccommodating, but there is vast opportunity within the precinct due to the many existing connections and vibrant pedestrian life. My chosen site is an existing heritage building and the active node, Gandhi Square, currently existing divided by a sprawl of busses through which pedestrians are forced to navigate through. Through the redesign of this space, I intend to encourage a pedestrian dominant city, and a civic space that enhances public life and further facilitates urban renewal. My intervention involves 3 elements; an outdoor theatre, the redesign of the Metro Bus facility and a public space to promote a harmonious transition zone between the two. The contemporary theatre I am proposing forms space without physical walls, as light and sound evolve to stage events. The theatre functions within the reshaping of an existing heritage building located on site. It is a flexible space where intense sensory events can occur and carve the avenues into a socially interactive city. This engaging atmosphere caters for the collective as well as the everyday encounter, transforming to the needs of Johannesburg. My intervention will define a place where the celebration of community is lacking and in turn seek to change the perceptions of our city. Through the experience of the whole, my design facilitates chance interactions in which mystical moments can be manifested within a public space devoted to civic escape.

This study explored the content, tone and amount of graffiti produced in South African bathrooms in KwaZulu-Natal. Raw graffiti was collected during 2008 from „institutions of higher education?. One of the primary aims of this study was to investigate if gender identities continue to operate in private, anonymous contexts. Politeness theory is utilized as a theoretical framework to generate hypotheses about the direction of influence gender may exert on graffiti if it continues to operate in private contexts. Inscriptions were written down in books. Thematic analysis was then applied, which led to the generation of content categories in content analysis on which chi-squared statistical procedures were applied. The categories were analysed in terms of amount, dominant content and tone, and were stratified in relation to gender. Ecosystems theory was used in an attempt to more holistically understand our sample within the context in which it was created. This study has found that gender had a significant influence on the amount, content, and tone of the graffiti produced. It was found that males dominantly produced tags and political graffiti content, and were more likely than females to produce neutral and negatively toned graffiti. Females produced significantly more graffiti than males and dominantly produced interpersonal content. We hypothesised that our findings were due to gender roles being internalised and continuing to operate in private contexts, especially in contexts where gender is salient, like a bathroom. We argued that the cognitive representation of an inscriber?s gendered audience influences them to behave in gendertypical ways, and in this behaviour their gender is performed, even in the private, anonymous context of the bathroom. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sci.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

This dissertation considers the creativity of Michael Zondi as one of South Africa’s so-called pioneer artists and the manner in which he used his art to contribute and create modernity. His creative skills initially locate him outside the classical designations of any one artistic discipline. From cabinet-making and building construction, which included an engagement as an architect and interior designer, ultimately Zondi became the proficient originator of a comparatively very large body of work in three-dimensional figurative wood sculpture. This study is largely confined to the latter body of work. The wood sculptor is located within the ambit of the black intelligentsia who, with their western mission education, was seeking to define and shape African modernity for themselves beyond descriptions mired in Eurocentric expression. Zondi’s early work emerged from crafting skills in woodwork, with thematic narratives that reflect regional sourcing among the amaZulu. Conceptually these represent a continuity of the creative practice of the generation before his own, particularly that of the black literary elite, who inspired him. He drew on the humanist values of the African communalism in which he was nurtured. As an ikholwa, he further drew on his Christian faith for guidance, using biblical inspiration for a few of his figurative works of art. Apart from participation in various group exhibitions from the early 1960s, unusual exhibition opportunities included two solo exhibitions, in 1965 and 1974, and an exhibition of his work in a group show in Paris, in 1977, which he attended personally. In the South African environment of black disempowerment and marginalization he secured his position outside party-political activism by using his art as his voice, especially among white patrons. As he found predominantly private patronage for his expressive human portraits, his philosophical exchange with enlightened friends, especially the medical practitioner Dr. Wolfgang Bodenstein, became the backdrop for his creative experience. Sensitive mentorship and informal tuition by white patrons provided Zondi with some knowledge of European modernist art. Drawing on it as an inspirational resource, the artist made discerning selections from this aesthetic in order to develop his own personal style. At the same time he ensured that his art remained accessible for a broad audience that included the rural people of his home environment, who were the source of his inspiration. Zondi’s thematic move beyond the confines of his Zuluness was the decisive factor which enabled the artist to engage in a very personal reconciliatory quest with white South Africans across the racial divide. In an endeavour which spanned the four decades of his active career as a sculptor, his self-representation through art was simultaneously an immersion in the human condition which became the expression of a shared humanity. By becoming the facilitator of reciprocity between people, it stood in defiance of the long-canonized fetish of race and segregation. By proffering his art as a means of communication, it thereby became an original and formative tool in shaping African modernity. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

The art historical foregrounding of pioneer and contemporary art of black South Africans during the last two decades of the 20th century has emphasised two-dimensional media. Given the dearth of biographies on black artists in general, it is the purpose of this dissertation to reposition the three-dimensional oeuvre of a pioneer sculptor in the context of the artistic creativity occurring within the educational and economic constraints of a segregated South Africa. While Michael Zondi's school education and vocational training was forged predominantly within a western mission context, the emergence of his talent remained largely independent of any art training initiatives or art-making institutions. This research study places a strong emphasis on Zondi's interface with a white elitist patronage base. As a member of an educated kholwa elite, Zondi's acculturation and intellectual exchange with his patrons regarding mores, belief systems and world views, centred on reciprocity, as the artist sought to redefine himself in terms of western paradigms initially imposed by colonialism. The exchange found consistent expression in Zondi's stance of reconciliation, which reflected the cross-cultural friendships under the aegis of a shared Christianity which the artist forged into a syncretism with his own received belief systems. Zondi's espousal of western cultural paradigms which facilitated the interface resulted in the public foregrounding of the work of this black artist, at a time in South African history when this was exceptional. From the 1960s the Lutheran mission enterprise in Natal provided a platform for liberation theology, challenging the suppression of indigenous belief systems as well as state autocracy and the reality of a segregated society. Given Zondi's acute political awareness, he was prompted to take up that challenge, albeit covertly, with visual texts addressing moral issues and voicing humanitarian concerns. With figurative genre sculptures frequently alluding to the artist's rootedness in his received Zulu traditions, the thematic content of some of Zondi's work shows an indigenisation of the Christian gospel as he drew on Biblically inspired imagery, making his art function as a vehicle for the articulation of his dissent. This study traces Zondi's stylistic development from representational naturalism of his early work to an espousal of a modernist visual language embracing some experimentation with his preferred medium, South African hardwoods. Within his essentially figurative representational style, and in part as a result of the intervention of his supporters, Zondi made use of expressive surface textures and distortion. His pronounced use of faceting in the later 1960s was consolidated after a short sojourn in Paris in the mid-1970s, when, for a short time, he created more conceptual human forms in a cubist manner. This represented his most marked departure from his recognizable figurative style of representational carving. While some of Zondi's pieces in private and public collections were included in group exhibitions during the 1980s and 1990s (1), research has not yet revealed pieces postdating 1987. It is probable that ill-health forced Zondi to consider his retirement from sculpting by the early 1990s. (1) "The Neglected Tradition", 1988; "Images of Wood", 1989; "Land and Lives", 1997. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

This thesis is an exploration of some of the defining characteristics of performance art, and an investigation of how such characteristics relate to ritual. It highlights some key notions, such as that of the “Real” and the live, which are introduced in the first chapter. This chapter explores the theories of Peggy Phelan, Julia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan in its attempts to conceptualize the Real. It assesses how performance art as ritual attempts to revise traditional apparatuses of representation. It argues that, through a transgression of representation, performance art has the potential to challenge and revise established discourses on identity, culture and violence. The second chapter of this study is an attempt to provide a history and subsequent conceptualization of performance art, based on its exposition of the live. I have taken into consideration certain strategies that performance artists employ to evoke the live, referring specifically to the manipulation of the body. It is through abject encounters with the unsymbolizable “Real” that the performance artist reaches the borders of his/her subjective constitution, and performs a transformation of his/her identity that transcends the mechanisms of representation. The third chapter of this study attempts to find the connections that exist between performance art and sacrificial ritual. I will refer specifically to the theories of Rene Girard. Girard‟s notion of the “violent sacred” and its significance within sacrifice as an antidote to community crises will be explored in relation to collective transformation within the performance event. I choose to focus specifically on the role of the performer as surrogate victim/pharmakon, and the spectators/witnesses as part of the community. The fourth chapter explores how two South African performance artists, Steven Cohen (1961) and Peter van Heerden (1973), perform the abject body as the monster. Kristeva‟s notion of the abject will be examined in terms of the transformation of the individual performer as subject within performance art, and how, through the assumption of an “othered,” monstrous identity, the performer becomes the surrogate victim. The fifth chapter will entail an examination of Peter van Heerden‟s 6 Minutes. I will attempt to draw parallels between performance art and ritual through using this performance piece as a case study. I will focus on the strategies that Van Heerden implements to resist theatrical representation. 6 Minutes will be observed in terms of its link to sacrificial ritual, and it presentation of the live, and the Real. In light of these discoveries, I aim to locate performance art within politically-driven modes of art-making, and how such an endeavour relates to South African modes of theatre and performance.

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.

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.

The central argument of this thesis asserts that in the process of challenging dominant subject positions, such as whiteness, performance creates the possibilities for new or alternative arrangements of desire. It examines how the creative process of desire is forestalled (reified) by habitual representations of whiteness as a privileged position, and proposes that performance can be a valid form of resistance to static conceptions of race and subjectivity. The discussion takes into account how the privilege of whiteness finds representation through forms of neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism in the post apartheid context. The analysis focuses on the work of white South African artists whose work offers a critique from within the privileged “centre” of whiteness. The research is situated within the inter-disciplinary field of performance studies entailing a reading and application of critical texts to the analysis. Alongside this qualitative methodology surfaces a subjective dialogue with the information presented on whiteness. Part Two includes an analysis of Steven Cohen’s The Cradle of Humankind (2011), Brett Bailey’s Exhibit A (2011) and Michael MacGarry’s LHR-JNB (2010). Each section examines the way in which the respective works engage in a questioning of whiteness through performance. Part Three investigates South African rap-rave duo, Die Antwoord and how their appropriation of Zef interrogates desires for an essential authenticity. Part Four focuses on my own performance practice and the proposed value of engaging with a form of practice-led research. This is particularly relevant in relation to critical race studies that require a level of self-reflexivity from the researcher. It presents an analysis of the work entitled Villain (2012) as a disturbance of theatrical desire through a process of ‘becoming’. This notion of meaning and identity as ‘becoming’ is argued as a strategy to challenge prevailing modes of perception which can possibly restore the production of desire to the viewer. The thesis concludes with the notion that performance can offer a mode of immanent ethics which is significant in creating both vulnerable and critical forms of whiteness.