A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Fine Arts. / American critic Hal Foster argues that conceptions of 'the natural' are not universal, they are historically and discursively produced, There is no unmediated presence of 'the natural' in painting. He proposes 'denaturalization' as a form of critical postmodemist aesthetic which questions universalist tendencies in contemporary cultural production" This research examines selected theories and visual. representations of 'the natural' in order to explore different ways in which Foster's notion of denaturalization may be productive in assessing the complexity of critical visual art practice in South Africa. My approach to the topic is largely fragmentary in order to reflect on and engage with the diverse terms of 'the natural' as manifest in visual art practice. To this end I discuss selected works of contemporary South African artists William Kentridge and Penelope'Siopis, While Foster's notion of denaturalization is productive in trying to engage with"critical issues' of art practice it is difficulr, if not impossible to determine if cenaln works conform with either his notion of a postmodernism of resistance or postmodernism of reaction. I will also explore the notion of denaturalization with reference to my practical work. / Andrew Chakane 2018

Art South Africa is currently the leading, professionally published art magazine in South Africa. The magazine plays an important role in the dissemination of art discourse and art news and is the only ongoing, printed forum devoted exclusively to South African contemporary art. In this paper I will be looking at Art South Africa to describe the type of art texts it presents and the particular position it has taken in the contemporary art world of South Africa. In doing this I will be analysing the magazine to register the types of writing and other information in formats such as art news, exhibition reviews, artist bios, interviews and even advertising. This paper will also be analysing selected texts to determine the key issues that are represented and the way those issues have been represented with a critical position. Looking at Art South Africa from many angles will show that criticality is one of the magazine’s ideological aims and though the magazine’s format changes over time, it has continually sought to engage its readers in critical discourse.

M. Tech. Fine Arts / The research aim of the study was to investigate the way that Nandipha Mntambo and Mary Sibande have used the female form in their art to undermine harmful representations/myths of women from a third wave feminist and a post-colonial perspective, using semiotics. Semiotics can be used to establish how meaning is made and reality represented in signs. The impact of signs, codes, myths and ideology of society on the embodiment of the female was investigated using semiotics. Third wave feminism theories can be applied in the analysis of the artworks such as Butler's gender construction and Crash and Pruzinsky's viewpoint on the harmful and stereotypical assumptions about women in visual culture. The post-feminist viewpoints as discussed by Jones about women being portrayed either as housewives and mothers or as sex and consumer objects in visual media were highlighted. Post-colonial perspectives such as the dominant ideology of the colonial period fostering the creation of interrelated, socially constructed, controlling images of black womanhood were discussed. Racial and gender discrimination affected most black women in colonial times. Through the semiotic analysis of Nandipha Mntambo and Mary Sibande, as well as the author's own artwork, an examination of the ideology of patriarchy as well as the ideology of colonialism could be identified. The artists express pride in their heritage and traditions. The ideology of consumerism and the myth of beauty are subverted by the artists in their artwork. The myth of the maid can be observed in the artworks of Sibande and the author. All the artists subvert stereotypical representations of women in society.

Thesis (PhD (Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / In this thesis I deconstruct key concepts, terminologies, and rhetorical conventions employed in white South African writing on modern black art. I trace the genealogy of the dominant discursive practices of the apartheid era to the cultural discourses of the colonial era, which in turn had their origins in the Enlightenment. This genealogical tracing aims to demonstrate that South African art writing of the 20th century partook of a tradition of Western writing that was primarily intent upon producing the Western subject as a rational Enlightenment agent via the debased objectification of the colonial Other. In the process of the deconstruction, I identify the most significant discursive shifts that occurred from the 1930’s, when the first publications emerged, to the 1990’s, when South Africa’s new political dispensation opened up a different cultural landscape.