M.Tech. (Fine Art) / The research investigates the similarities and differences between the display of selected, mass-produced objects in museums, with special reference to the Victoria & Albert Museum and Melrose House Museum, and in three domestic spaces. A brief historical background to the activity of collecting mass-produced objects is explored in order to reveal the archival function of museum displays and domestic displays, each of which conserve and preserve objects. The public and private meanings attached to objects in different spaces is suggested, and the ability of the selected objects to reflect social issues beyond their function is addressed. Both museum displays and domestic displays provide the source for the altered objects and drawings which form the exhibition. In manipulating the ready-made, mass-produced objects possible new meanings and narratives are suggested.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Fine Arts by Dissertation / In this study I focus on the creative practice of American artist Tom Joyce and examine how his work can be seen to redefine the traditional craft of blacksmithing. Joyce uses traditional and contemporary blacksmithing techniques to form contemporary sculptures as well as functional items such as custom made architectural and lighting fixtures, vessels, and furniture. He thus brings together fine arts and traditional craft practices in bridging the categories of fine art, craft and design. Through appropriate design, the recycling of selected metal materials and community involvement he creates social awareness around environmental issues as well as highlighting cultural craft practices. The imparting of metalsmithing skills that Joyce has been involved in through teaching groups and individuals by way of apprenticeships and workshops is of particular interest to my own artistic blacksmithing practice. As a maker of forged sculptural works, I have over the last ten years used my work and experience of blacksmithing in facilitating life skills training for South African children and youth, recognizing the value in passing on such skills and experience. The primary aim of my research is to examine how the adoption of a traditional craft practice such as blacksmithing into the realm of fine art may be shown to provide a tool to invigorate sculpture within social and educational contexts. In my research, I draw mainly on writings in the fields of anthropology and craft theory. Texts by anthropologists Tim Ingold, Alfred Gell, Mircea Eliade and Charles M. Keller and Janet Dixon Keller are consulted in my examination of the craft of blacksmithing as an “essential alchemy of art” (Gell in Adamson (ed.), 2010: 464) in which materials and the ideas associated with such materials are used and transformed. Looking at the craft and mythological significance of metalsmithing in relation to Joyce’s creative practice, I go on to consider the potentially transformative experience that the development of metalsmithing craft skills can entail. Writings on contemporary craft by Glenn Adamson, Howard Risatti, Bruce Metcalf and others are brought into my discussion to further elucidate on the value of craft-based work. I finally outline my own creative work produced for this degree in relation to the above.

In India in London I explore the numerous ways that Indian identity was being corporeally represented in Victorian London. Unlike other colonial identities who were also exhibited throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the exhibition of India in London routinely included a range of ‘authentic’ performers and entertainments, including native artisans, ethnological models of tribal and caste groups, snake charmers, conjurers, contortionists, nautch girls (Indian dancers), and theatrical spectacles. By exploring the presentations and interpretations of these embodied forms of display, I attend to the exhibition of a colonised culture that although broadly branded ‘premodern’ was also being acknowledged as an ancient and artistic civilisation and therefore could not be fully situated into an inferior category. By paying attention to contradictions such as these, I urge that, in the context of exhibiting peoples, white imperial power manifested not only through ‘savages’ but also through cultures that were more ambivalently comprehended. Therefore, while detailed evaluations of these entertainments join to and expand the scholarship that deals with the exhibition of peoples, I also show that the exhibition of India importantly accounts for the tenacious and creative strategies of the imperial ethos. Furthermore, by understanding exhibitions during this period as theatrical sites, which involved the participation of a British audience, I argue that Indian identity was partly being produced in, by and for the public imagination. In this thesis I largely explore the relationship between display and imperialism and consider how this relationship ensued through embodied, varied and performative ways of viewing, knowing, racialising, historicising and gendering India in the urban metropolis. However, by responding to the contentions and contradictions of performance, I also show that exhibited India in its assorted forms resided in numerous, often conflating, sometimes competing powers, including imperialism, entertainment, science, capitalism and nationalism in the Indian context. India as exhibition is consequently significant not only for its contribution to imperial discourse-making, but also for its disobediences to the hegemonic script. An argument thus develops in the pages to follow that although the exhibition of Indian bodies reflected, produced and promoted an image of India that the British Empire relied upon in order to succeed, they also rebounded within discourses that critiqued. Most interestingly, it is through these ambiguities that the making of imperial ideology in popular culture, the instability of British-Indian relations and the eventual downfall of the Raj can be charted. It is here that my most significant contribution lies.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes special report study entitled: Hong Kong : from world city to world class city. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Technische Universität Braunschweig, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. S.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2005. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: C. Van Shelhamer. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-86).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1964. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: l. 73-74.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes special report study entitled: Hong Kong : from world city to world class city. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

A Research Report submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History of Art to the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2016 / In this research, I study the work by contemporary South African artist, Johannes Phokela, in relation to the Western art historical canon. I undertake a close analysis of his painting Candle Bathing (1997) that quotes Samson and Delilah (1609-1610) by the seventeenth century Flemish Baroque painter, Peter Paul Rubens. Through a comparative analysis and close looking I read Candle Bathing’s ‘visual argument’ within a postcolonial context. To argue that Candle Bathing is not a mere ‘quotation’ I look closely from multiple angles. To deal with the complexity of a quotation that crosses socio-political time and space, I interpret the painting from various theoretical frameworks: poststructuralism (semiotics), postmodernism (irony); and postcolonial theory to situate my contextual analysis. I am interested in how we can read beyond the literal and how a close reading of this ironic quotation can surface the complexities of contemporary South African art in relation to the art historical canon and colonialism. Through close looking I read Candle Bathing as addressing the art canon, colonialism, critiquing issues of race, and marginalisation. This research contributes to filling a knowledge based gap by researching a previously marginalised artist and a close engagement with Candle Bathing. In addition, this research offers a way of looking and a method on how to begin looking closely at contemporary African art quoting canonical works. I illustrate the value of close looking to read multifaceted and layered interpretations. / MT2017