The purpose of my experimental research in the MFA Design Program has been to develop a working methodology to transfer into a professional graphic design practice upon completion of the program. In my time here, I have built a body of work that clearly expresses my intention, and developed a solid comprehension of the field of design, its discourse, and where my work is situated within it. The intended audience for my work, which tends to fall in the blurred space between design and art, are consumers of image and pop culture in the field, gallery, and public sphere. The projects I’ll present in this report will provide a context for the process by which I arrived at a personal methodology and a narrative for how I came to think about my work up to this point. / text

This dissertation examines the early works of the Russian artist Ilya Kabakov and traces the beginning of a linguistic trend in the development of Moscow Conceptualism. Analyzing the drawings and paintings that the artist created between 1962 and 1966, I place Kabakov’s artistic style and ideas in the context of the cultural, theoretical and scientific phenomena that affected Soviet art and society in the early 1960s. Kabakov’s works are shown as evolving in a process that renders the artist’s techniques increasingly polysemantic, dialogic and conceptual. The dissertation then demonstrates that Kabakov’s visual images and linguistic titles participated, indirectly yet actively, in the cultural debates of Moscow’s artistic underground and the Soviet society. The dynamic correspondence between a fervent cultural context, growing interest in linguistic and scientific ideas, increasing conceptualization of visual means of expression and intellectualization of the artistic approach to the image led to the appropriation of language in the works of Moscow underground artists. The dissertation establishes such a development in the early works of Ilya Kabakov, proposing that his earliest “conversational” work Whose Fly is This? was the first conceptual painting to display text in the form of a written dialogue. The colloquial style and conversational character of the depicted discourse are examined as an ironic gesture that takes its genesis from the polyphonic theory of Mikhail Bakhtin and reverses the official non-dialogical imperatives of Soviet newspeak and ideology. The main figural image of the painting—the fly—is seen as articulating the utopias and anti-utopias of avant-garde figures such as Kharms or Malevich and interpreted as alluding to a key contemporaneous scientific discovery—the chromosomes of the drosophila. In the end, the words and the image of Whose Fly is This? form the two mutually exclusive and mutually complementary aspects of a compound conceptual signifier. That is the signifier of the free artistic spirit, evanescent human existence and mundane, yet resilient human nature that ironically survives—against all odds and despite all absurdities—beyond the boundary of the social utopia and the limits of epistemological systems. / text

I conduct a series of experiments culminating in a gallery exhibition, I Never Stopped Being A Curator, which investigate and reinterpret what it means to ‘care’ and ‘profane’ in the context of an expanded notion of curatorial practice. I call what I’m doing ‘performative micro-curating,’ a playfully performative practice with precedents dating back to Marcel Duchamp and The Richard Mutt Case. More specifically, I’m interpreting and practising performative micro-curating as a relational, meta-conceptual art practice that uses mirroring and repetition as a method for posing questions, making knowledge and forging social bonds, while, at the same time, dissolving the boundaries that customarily distinguish artmaking from curating.

This study focuses on the way in which the conceptual artists Berni Searle and Jan van der Merwe portray their respective memories of the influence of hegemony on their identity formation. Two conceptual installations of each artist, namely Looking back (1999) and Not quite white (2000) of Searle and Wag (2000) and Ontwortel (2009) of Van der Merwe, are interpreted comparatively according to the portrayal of hegemony, identity (including the artists‟ different sexual and race identities) and their memories of the historic and cultural effects of domination. The reading and interpretation of the installations are guided by the key concepts hegemony, identity and memory and are grounded theoretically from a critical post colonial perspective. Searle and Van der Merwe‟s memories of the influence of power relations and ideology on their conception of art and identity formation are addressed by contextualizing the artists within the South African context. Van der Merwe, as a white Afrikaans speaking man, initially formed collectively part of the Western patriarchate identity norm because of his historic background. His identity is in contrast with Searle‟s brown and female identity which is traditionally viewed and portrayed as different and inferior. Van der Merwe‟s memorial art is therefore mainly that of the unjustified benefiting of the white and male agents of power in contrast with Searle‟s memorial art of colonial and patriarchate domination. / Thesis (MA (History of Art))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

This study focuses on the way in which the conceptual artists Berni Searle and Jan van der Merwe portray their respective memories of the influence of hegemony on their identity formation. Two conceptual installations of each artist, namely Looking back (1999) and Not quite white (2000) of Searle and Wag (2000) and Ontwortel (2009) of Van der Merwe, are interpreted comparatively according to the portrayal of hegemony, identity (including the artists‟ different sexual and race identities) and their memories of the historic and cultural effects of domination. The reading and interpretation of the installations are guided by the key concepts hegemony, identity and memory and are grounded theoretically from a critical post colonial perspective. Searle and Van der Merwe‟s memories of the influence of power relations and ideology on their conception of art and identity formation are addressed by contextualizing the artists within the South African context. Van der Merwe, as a white Afrikaans speaking man, initially formed collectively part of the Western patriarchate identity norm because of his historic background. His identity is in contrast with Searle‟s brown and female identity which is traditionally viewed and portrayed as different and inferior. Van der Merwe‟s memorial art is therefore mainly that of the unjustified benefiting of the white and male agents of power in contrast with Searle‟s memorial art of colonial and patriarchate domination. / Thesis (MA (History of Art))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

should one react against the laziness of railway tracks between the passage of two trains investigates the everyday as experienced in the post-industrial landscape. Through the activities of walking and mapping, fieldwork is conducted during treks that follow the route of the railroad in the Kitchener-Waterloo region. I examine detritus as post-readymade artifacts of the industrial economy that has abandoned the area. Interventions of minimal gestures engage the inherent narratives of these discarded materials. Improvised assembled sculptures mark my route as a form of wayfinding that re-appropriates the neglected urban space of the railroad right of way. Online maps document these treks as open works of art to be completed by participants as self-guided walks. The activity of walking and assembling sculptures in these marginal landscapes is a playful strategy that resists the alienation of immaterial labour in our contemporary economic context.

I conduct a series of experiments culminating in a gallery exhibition, I Never Stopped Being A Curator, which investigate and reinterpret what it means to ‘care’ and ‘profane’ in the context of an expanded notion of curatorial practice. I call what I’m doing ‘performative micro-curating,’ a playfully performative practice with precedents dating back to Marcel Duchamp and The Richard Mutt Case. More specifically, I’m interpreting and practising performative micro-curating as a relational, meta-conceptual art practice that uses mirroring and repetition as a method for posing questions, making knowledge and forging social bonds, while, at the same time, dissolving the boundaries that customarily distinguish artmaking from curating.

Thesis (M.V.A.)--Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, 2005. / Title from title screen (viewed 26 May 2008). "Glass"--At the foot of t.p. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Visual Arts to the Sydney College of the Arts. Degree awarded 2005; thesis submitted 2004. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 25-26).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Los Angeles, 2002. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 238-256).