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.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts (History of Art) by coursework and research report March 2017 / In the 1960s and 1970s, farm worker Nukain Mabuza created a painted hillside rock garden on a farm between Barberton and Kaapmuiden, Mpumalanga, South Africa. He transformed his dwellings, and rearranged and painted the surrounding rocks according to a unified scheme of geometric and animal motifs with a carefully selected colour palette. This altered environment went far further aesthetically, and lasted far longer in time, than the signs and scars that might typically result from a farm worker’s dwelling upon the land. His work arguably bears some of the hallmarks of an inhabited ‘total work of art’. I challenge the dominant ‘outsider art’ explanatory framework adopted by JFC Clarke and re-evaluate the fragmentary archive of Mabuza’s life and work. Working from the likelihood that no single context will offer sufficient grounds for situating Nukain Mabuza’s particular creative practice, I assess the relevance of cultural, historical and religious contexts, which might have shaped Nukain Mabuza’s personal vision and contributed to the form of his expressive environment. Nukain Mabuza’s altered landscape has suffered considerable damage – there is no longer any trace of the two dwellings and the stile, and the paintings on the rocks have all but disappeared. My project seeks to contribute to the scholarship on Nukain Mabuza’s work by extending, analysing, interpreting and situating his inhabited painted environment within the worldview of southern African Bantu-speakers, as a unique personal creative expression, and as an expression of the artist’s modernity. / MT2018

A research report submitted to the Wits School of Arts in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Masters Degree in Coursework and Research in Arts, Culture and Heritage studies. Johannesburg, 2015 / One of the principal purposes of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), one of Johannesburg’s public institutions, is to educate the public through the arts. The many changes, including political changes, in South Africa that caused the movement of people from one area to another have affected the audience participation at this museum. The Johannesburg Art Gallery is located in Joubert Park, the southern part of Hillbrow, which has been affected by the changes that have taken place from the time of the museum’s inception to the present day, when the area is inhabited by black people from all over Africa. The concern is therefore to understand the relationship between these two. I plan to interrogate the mission of JAG, to find out if it is relevant to the community that it is located in, and if the community is aware and supportive of JAG’s activities. The purpose of this investigation is to challenge the methods that are used by JAG to obtain and maintain visitors to the museum, and to expand the target market group by shifting focus from the people that used to live within this community to the present-day inhabitants. This is done by finding out from the Joubert Park community what is it that they wish to see in this museum. By observing their everyday life and interviewing them, I explore why or how much the people of Joubert Park are involved in the Johannesburg Art Gallery today. To reach the conclusion of this research, observing the area and interviewing the community will be followed by interviewing the co-ordinators of the Joubert Park Project (started in 2000) that was designed for the purpose of involving this community in the public spaces and institutions around them, and finally the employees of the Johannesburg Art Gallery. In addition, studying recent successful exhibitions would possibly reveal the explanation of what people want to see. In this world of ever-changing technology and culture of cyber space, can a museum attract new audiences by using methods that are contemporary and interactive?

D. Tech. Fine and Applied Art / The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is an association between art making and the brain state known as flow, a construct defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Links were sought between artists' perceived propensity to experience flow and quantified experimental data of the same art-making events. A predominantly psychological theoretical framework had to be created, contextual as well as conceptual, of historical and contemporary leanings that have formulated understandings of creativity and flow. These indicate that flow can trace its origins to concepts of human happiness and excellence, motivation, self-determination and peak experiences. These concepts illustrate that in pursuing intrinsic endeavours such as art making, a person is continuously engaged in reflectivity and deliberation concerning his or her actions and aims, which tend to be self-motivated or autotelic. In this study the autotelic and self-reflecting leanings of art making were found to be germane to flow. A key aspect for understanding the flow experience is Arne Dietrich's hypothesis of transient hypofrontality, described as enabling the temporary suppression of the analytical and meta-conscious capacities of the explicit system. In this study, transient hypofrontality was found to be germane to interpretations of flow and art making.

This study examines the means by which four South African woman artists, namely Penny Siopis, Jo Ractliffe, Lien Botha and Tania Kühl use memory and history as themes to represent social and political events in South Africa. The foundation of this investigation is a critical study of the meaning of history and memory within the context of the candidate’s contemporary social and political milieu. This investigation is facilitated by a number of published and unpublished works by various authors relating to the issues in visual arts; particularly social and political history as applied to personal memory and history. Chapter one explores these terms particularly in relation to the visual arts. Chapter one identifies terms that are vital to the dissertation and some of the literature and methodologies used in the research. These are divided into the subheadings of: terms; women, politics and art; art and documentary photography; literature review; methodology and conclusion.. Examples of each artist’s work are selected for a comprehensive analysis in chapter two. These examples are methodically studied by media and techniques used to produce the artworks and include a critical analysis of the subject matter of the artwork. The examples were selected primarily for their content in connection with the candidate’s own productions of practical work towards the MAFA degree. Chapter two is divided into four main sections, one dedicated to each artist: Penny Siopis, Jo Ractliffe, Lien Botha and Tania Kühl. These four sections are divided into three subsections: medium and techniques; subject matter and conclusion. Chapter three points out similarities and differences in the work of the four selected artists in order to conclude the candidate’s findings during the dissertation. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

The depiction of blackness in the visual arts is located in the complex discourse of representation. Blackness within western visual art has been, and continues to be viewed as oppositional to representations of whiteness, and is constantly perceived as other. This dissertation analyses the process of othering and the impact of such a process on the production of artwork in southern Africa, where the representation of the black male, in particular has been subjected to racist ideology, supported by its props, stereotype, generalization and the homogenization of black experience. Using poststructuralist theories of identity construction and power, I analyse stereotype, racism and masculinity in the colonial and postcolonial periods, focussing especially on the internalization of white constructions of blackness within black visual culture. I discuss the work of Baines as representative of colonial constructions of black masculinity, the work of Bhengu, Mapplethorpe and Makhoba as illustrative of the internalization of stereotypic identities, and the work of Voyiya, Harris and Nyoni as representative of resistant discourses of representation of the black male body. I situate the latter within the contemporary debate on questions of subjectivity and agency within the Foucauldian concept of power. I have deliberately chosen works by two American artists (Mapplethorpe and Harris) in order to situate discourses of blackness within a wider context. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

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.

This visual arts based research explores the autonomous process of mark-making from the unconscious for the sake of expressing inner turmoil that comes with ‘Living in the Shadow of Death series’ (2014). The manner by which emotions are, in a sense, naturally released in automatic drawing and painting underpin the basis of this research as part of the development of an expressive visual language. ‘Living in the Shadow of Death’ is definitively concerned with how an emotional predisposition, a severe case of unconscious aggression due to struggles with the illness of Marfan Syndrome comes to the surface naturally and is expressed visually. Essentially, this research aims to answer the main research question: How might the act of drawing convey the power and complexity of emotion through the exploration of autonomous mark-making with unconventional tools, mediums and methodologies? This research inquiry rests upon three important benefactors and influences: Illness, anatomy and unconventional tools. What is discussed is an interdisciplinary regime of theoretical and practical research into Surrealist Automatism and a progressive development of this methodology formed from the perspective and approach of a Marfan Syndrome sufferer. The research includes an analysis of Automatism in the works and practice of artists Roberto Matta, Joan Miro and Andre Masson and their influence on the working methods of Jackson Pollock. To this end, the contribution made by Jungian therapy to Pollock’s Action Painting technique and experimentation with unconventional methodologies is explored. Furthermore, the practice-led analysis and documentation of information gained on Surrealist Automatism aided development of working procedures and how this guided the creation of a body of works entitled ‘Living in the Shadow of Death’ is discussed. Ultimately, the content of this research expands the discourse on what constitutes drawing tools, media and format, and how suffering from Marfan Syndrome extended and amplified the expressive potential of Surrealist Automatism and Action Painting exemplified in the development of an innovative methodology known as ‘Anatomical Automatism’.

This study investigates the link between anguish and artistic creativity. It became possible to follow this link through the concept of anguish and its related aspects that were explored in the works of Jacques Lacan. The concept of art that was adopted in this study is based on the theories of Georges Dickie and Arthur Danto, which explain the role of the idea of institutional art through the artworld. The current study pursued its enquiries through the analysis of the texts of interviews with selected South African artists namely Albert Munyai, Azwimpheleli Gerson Magoro and Norman Catherine and through selected artworks by these three artists. A mix of discourse analysis and iconography was employed to analyse the data. Anguish is an affect that is not readily apparent or detectable but is more likely to be recognized as something displaced, inverted or adrift. Therefore, anguish in the data was approached from diverse angles. Discourse analysis helped to find patterns in the language that linked to signs of anguish as described through a psychoanalytical framework. For the analysis of the artworks, a combination of iconography and the categories of the borromean knot was adopted. These methodologies permitted the translation of aspects of artworks into texts. Anguish as an affect related with the absence of an absolute meaning for existence may also be present in the motivation to create something from nothingness. There is an indication that through creating art one may be trying to symbolize the real that affects the subject.

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.