South Africa has not yet become a nation united in its diversity despite the claim made otherwise in the South African constitution. To grapple with the constitution’s unfulfilled promises, many writers and artists from the country have taken up the incongruity between lived experience and nationalist rhetoric in their works. As part of that efforts by artists and writers in South Africa, Ivan Vladislavić’s 2006 book Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked describes the difficulties of living in a country that does not perfectly match the rhetoric of a nation “united in [its] diversity.” In order to expand on the theme in Portrait with Keys of incongruity between lived life and the national discourse, as well as between lived life and literary representations, it is imperative to identify the discourse surrounding the current situation in South Africa. In this analysis of Vladislavić’s book, the author will describe and decipher moments where the lived experience of residents in Johannesburg belies the inclusionary discourse of South Africa and the literary representation of other cities. After describing moments that highlight the lack of correspondence between life and word, the author will analyze the various strategies for coping with the incongruity in the book. By taking this route of analysis, the author intends to illuminate the South African phenomenon of incongruent experience (in which lived life, discourse, and representation do not correspond) and arrive at a reading of the incongruity in Vladislavić’s book that leaves room for hope. / text

Ivan Vladislavić’s fiction shows a preoccupation with the South African past in terms of both time and space and with the influence of ideology on the interpretation of the past and of cultural artefacts such as cityscapes, buildings, monuments, photographs, and fine art within the South African context. No study has yet considered Vladislavić’s entire oeuvre in terms of the interaction between time and space and their particular manifestation in concrete cultural expressions that generate meaning that can only be recognized over time and within the limits of different perspectives. In order to situate his work within such a paradigm, this thesis discusses various theories on the representation of time and space and their application and argues that Vladislavić represents concrete reality and abstract ideas about the past and ideologies in an interrelated manner, in order to illuminate the ways in which concrete reality influences perceptions of the past and its associated ideologies, but also how past and ideology, in turn, influence how concrete reality is perceived. His fiction can thus be described as exploring the complex dynamic between concrete and abstract. Perspective plays an important role in his fiction in terms of both his representation of concrete (city and artefacts) and abstract reality (past and ideology). Characters’ perspectives come into play as they negotiate, create and interpret concrete and abstract reality, and in the light of how they ‘see’ the world, their identities are shaped. Vladislavić shows that perspective is inevitably blurred with ideological prejudice. He does so, in such a way, that a reader is often led to reconsider her/his own way of perceiving both concrete and abstract. Cultural artefacts, in particular, mediate perceptions of time and of place; they are (in)formed by ideology and also have singular signifying possibilities and limitations. By drawing attention to his own expression in language, by creating seemingly random lists, or focusing on the multiple meanings of a word in a playful manner, Vladislavić shows that, like artefacts, language too is a medium for mediation that is subject to and formative of ideology. / Thesis (PhD (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Ivan Vladislavić’s fiction shows a preoccupation with the South African past in terms of both time and space and with the influence of ideology on the interpretation of the past and of cultural artefacts such as cityscapes, buildings, monuments, photographs, and fine art within the South African context. No study has yet considered Vladislavić’s entire oeuvre in terms of the interaction between time and space and their particular manifestation in concrete cultural expressions that generate meaning that can only be recognized over time and within the limits of different perspectives. In order to situate his work within such a paradigm, this thesis discusses various theories on the representation of time and space and their application and argues that Vladislavić represents concrete reality and abstract ideas about the past and ideologies in an interrelated manner, in order to illuminate the ways in which concrete reality influences perceptions of the past and its associated ideologies, but also how past and ideology, in turn, influence how concrete reality is perceived. His fiction can thus be described as exploring the complex dynamic between concrete and abstract. Perspective plays an important role in his fiction in terms of both his representation of concrete (city and artefacts) and abstract reality (past and ideology). Characters’ perspectives come into play as they negotiate, create and interpret concrete and abstract reality, and in the light of how they ‘see’ the world, their identities are shaped. Vladislavić shows that perspective is inevitably blurred with ideological prejudice. He does so, in such a way, that a reader is often led to reconsider her/his own way of perceiving both concrete and abstract. Cultural artefacts, in particular, mediate perceptions of time and of place; they are (in)formed by ideology and also have singular signifying possibilities and limitations. By drawing attention to his own expression in language, by creating seemingly random lists, or focusing on the multiple meanings of a word in a playful manner, Vladislavić shows that, like artefacts, language too is a medium for mediation that is subject to and formative of ideology. / Thesis (PhD (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This thesis undertakes an analysis of how six published works by the South African writer Ivan Vladislavić form the perspective of writing the city – Johannesburg – into being. Beginning from the basis that Vladislavić’s writing constitutes what I have coined dialogic postcolonialism, the thesis engages with both broader contemporary urban and postcolonial theory in order to show the liminal imaginative space that the author occupies in his narrations of Johannesburg. Underlining the notion of postcolonialism being a “work in progress” my thesis problematises the issue of representation of the postcolonial city through different aspects like space, urbanity, identity and the self, and thus locates each of the texts under consideration at a particular locus in Vladislavić’s representational continuum of the continually transforming city of Johannesburg. Until the recent appearance of Mariginal Spaces – Reading Vladislavić (2011) the extant critical literature and research on the writing of Ivan Vladislavić has, as far as I can tell, not engaged with his work as a body of creative consideration and close analysis of the city of Johannesburg. Even this latest text largely consists of previously published reviews and articles by disparate critics and academics. The trend has therefore largely been to analyse the texts separately, without treating them as the building blocks to an ongoing and perhaps unending project of imaginatively bringing the city into being. Such readings have thus been unable to decipher and characterise the threads which have emerged over the period of the writer’s literary engagement with and representation of Johannesburg. I suggest that, as individual texts and as a collection or body of work, Ivan Vladislavić’s Missing Persons (1989), The Folly (1993), Propaganda by Monuments and Other Stories (1996), The Restless Supermarket (2006 – first published in 2001), The Exploded View (2004) and Portrait with Keys: Joburg & what-what (2006), are engaged in framing representations of the postcolonial city, representations which can in my view best be analysed through the prism of deconstructive engagement. To this end, the thesis examines contemporary South African urbanity or the post-apartheid metropolitan space (as epitomised by the fictive Johannesburg) and how it is represented in literature as changing, and in the process of becoming. As a consequence, the main conclusion I arrive at is on how the irresolvable nature of the city is reflected in the totality of Ivan Vladislavić’s writing. In that way, it was possible to treat every text in its own right (rather than forcing it to conform to an overarching thesis). This central insight allowed for the effective application of urban theory to the close readings of the texts.

Le travail de Willem Boshoff s’articule autour de la date charnière d’avril 1994, les premières élections démocratiques en Afrique du Sud. Il fait des sculptures en granite et des installations de matériaux accumulés. L’artiste revendique son attachement à un art basé sur le langage, il est écrivain de dictionnaires. En revisitant les questions posées par les artistes du XXème siècle, textes et œuvres produits en Europe sont systématiquement vérifiés au regard de leur contrepartie sud-africaine. L’attitude de Boshoff, une mélancolique interrogation de son rôle de créateur, s’explique par les conditions politiques et son milieu culturel. L’artiste découvre des façons plus dynamiques de faire geste quand il adopte ce persona du druide. Lors de son objection de conscience au service militaire il avait appris qu’il est mieux de cacher la véritable signification d’un signe ou d’inventer des façons de disqualifier les textes. Les “Notes pour une esthétique aveugle” où l’essentiel n’est pas visible, inventent un dictionnaire à être lu avec les mains. Boshoff interroge ici les théories de perception qui munissent l’artiste sud-africain d’une façon de faire basculer le monde occidental vers une pensée qu’il peut réclamer sienne. La multiplicité des langues en Afrique du Sud s’ouvre à des questions de mémoire, d’écologie, de disparition, d’espace mental, des limites de la ficticité. Boshoff incite son spectateur à une opération de traduction qui peut être envisagée de façon tangible dans des œuvres tels que “Writing in the Sand” et les “Jardins de mots”. Le druide est le berger des mots et des plantes en danger d’oubli. Par le même geste il les protège contre la possibilité d’être pétrifiés ou fossilisés dans une théorie ou dans un dogme. Un champ d’intelligibilité du travail de Boshoff est créé à l’aide d’esprits apparentés: Sarkis, Mofokeng, Baumgarten, Gette, Mudzunga, Ulrichs, Zulu, Kosuth, Wafer, Bochner, Filliou, Darboven, Alÿs, Acconci, Langa, Marshall McLuhan, Ivan Vladislavić. / Willem Boshoff’s work articulates around a pivotal date, April 1994, the first democratic elections in South Africa. He may choose to work gigantic rocks of granite or establish vast installations of accumulated material. The artist claims that his work is based on language, often taking the form of Dictionaries. While reviewing the main questions by artists of the twentieth century, texts or artworks from Europe are systematically tested against their South African counterpart. Boshoff’s attitude is determined by a melancholic questioning of his role as a creator linked to a political situation and cultural milieu. He discovers more dynamic ways of presenting gestures when his artistic activity is related to the way of life of a druid. As a conscientious objector he learnt that it is often better to hide the true signification of a sign or to disqualify a text. Boshoff’s “Notes towards a blind Aesthetic”, where the essential is not visible, invent a dictionary to be read with the hands. Questioning perception theories provides the artist with a way of capsizing the occidental world towards patterns of thinking that he can claim for himself. The multiplicity of languages in South Africa opens up to questions of memory, ecology, disappearance, mental space as a site of creation, experiments with the limits of the fictional. The druid is one exceptional character amongst others in the contemporary art world. Boshoff obliges his visitor to participate in an act of translation which is given provisional but tangible form in such works as “Writing in the Sand” and the “Gardens of Words”. The druid becomes the guardian of words and plants in danger of being forgotten also safeguarding them against being petrified or fossilized into a set theory or dogma. Kindred spirits working on all continents are: Sarkis, Mofokeng, Baumgarten, Mudzunga, Ulrichs, Kosuth, Wafer, Bochner, Gette, Filliou, Darboven, Alÿs, Acconci, Langa, Marshall McLuhan and Ivan Vladislavić.

Le travail de Willem Boshoff s'articule autour de la date charnière d'avril 1994, les premières élections démocratiques en Afrique du Sud. Il fait des sculptures en granite et des installations de matériaux accumulés. L'artiste revendique son attachement à un art basé sur le langage, il est écrivain de dictionnaires. En revisitant les questions posées par les artistes du XXème siècle, textes et œuvres produits en Europe sont systématiquement vérifiés au regard de leur contrepartie sud-africaine. L'attitude de Boshoff, une mélancolique interrogation de son rôle de créateur, s'explique par les conditions politiques et son milieu culturel. L'artiste découvre des façons plus dynamiques de faire geste quand il adopte ce persona du druide. Lors de son objection de conscience au service militaire il avait appris qu'il est mieux de cacher la véritable signification d'un signe ou d'inventer des façons de disqualifier les textes. Les "Notes pour une esthétique aveugle" où l'essentiel n'est pas visible, inventent un dictionnaire à être lu avec les mains. Boshoff interroge ici les théories de perception qui munissent l'artiste sud-africain d'une façon de faire basculer le monde occidental vers une pensée qu'il peut réclamer sienne. La multiplicité des langues en Afrique du Sud s'ouvre à des questions de mémoire, d'écologie, de disparition, d'espace mental, des limites de la ficticité. Boshoff incite son spectateur à une opération de traduction qui peut être envisagée de façon tangible dans des œuvres tels que "Writing in the Sand" et les "Jardins de mots". Le druide est le berger des mots et des plantes en danger d'oubli. Par le même geste il les protège contre la possibilité d'être pétrifiés ou fossilisés dans une théorie ou dans un dogme. Un champ d'intelligibilité du travail de Boshoff est créé à l'aide d'esprits apparentés: Sarkis, Mofokeng, Baumgarten, Gette, Mudzunga, Ulrichs, Zulu, Kosuth, Wafer, Bochner, Filliou, Darboven, Alÿs, Acconci, Langa, Marshall McLuhan, Ivan Vladislavić.