This study, entitled African modernism and identity politics: curatorial practice in the Global South with particular reference to South Africa, postulates that perceptions of African identity in curatorial exhibitions are changing, moving towards the intercultural views generated by Africans themselves. African identity politics is investigated in relation to critical ideas on African modernism and post-Africanism, in conjunction with similarities with Nicholas Bourriaud’s concept of altermodernism. The research focus falls within the Global South as a geo-political location, with particular reference to South African artworks and their curation. In this qualitative study, an investigation is launched of curated exhibitions dealing with identitarian issues. A critique is set up on curatorial approaches on African identity as presented at seminal exhibitions, from the 1985 exhibition, Tributaries: a view of contemporary South African art (curated by Ricky Burnett), through the 1990s Johannesburg Biennials, to more recent exhibitions such as Documenta XI (2002, curated by Okwui Enwezor) and Africa remix: contemporary art of a continent (2004-2007, curated by Simon Njami), as well as the Tate Liverpool exhibition Afro modern: journeys through the black Atlantic (2010, curated by Tanya Barson and Peter Gorschlüter). Along with a critique of curatorial intentions, these exhibitions are reviewed in order to explore the representation of African modern identity. This study considers how, after postcolonialism and postmodernism, binary differences such as Western/African and black/white have become less pronounced, due to globalising processes, resulting in interculturalism and transnationalism. This study captures the shift away from the centrality thinking of postmodernism and postcolonialism, not in terms of white superiority, but in terms of a reconstruction of the modern, in order to situate Africa as a product of globalisation. The study hypothesises that transmutation has occurred, rendering society as culturally intermixed, and thus dismantling essential racial stereotypes. The study rather investigates identity exchange in terms of translation, where the understanding of difference is considered in terms of changing understandings of difference itself through globalisation. In order to surpass stereo-racial boundaries, this study postulates that identitarian understanding is now transconscious, pluralised to the point of being racially exchanged. The exhibition Trans-Africa: Africa curating Africa challenges and transmutes stereotypes of backwardness, exoticism and dislocation in perceptions of Africa within the curatorial realm, and aims to elicit new frameworks to interpret African art. The curatorial objective is to posit a contemporary understanding of African identity within the public domain: in a space where terms like race, culture, tradition or self/other need not form the basis of identitarian understanding in Africa. The outcome of such an understanding is explained through the concept of the transmutation of culture, that problematises differences in cultural translation and trans-consciousness. This results in a transnational and global understanding, no longer limited to the understanding of African identity with regard to diasporic or nomadic conditions. As such, cultural intermixing and trans-consciousness conveys that within changing curatorial perceptions, the issue of who has the right to comment on whom is fading. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Visual Arts / unrestricted

The thesis explores a multidisciplinary approach, bridging together perspectives from art-historical, philosophical and anthropological fields of knowledge to question and outline the way materiality has been thought about, and how this in turn can be informative to developing a curatorial methodology. By looking at Moderna Museet Stockholm, the thesis will demonstrate the mileage of thinking materially in the act of exhibition making and the curatorial position. In doing so, the thesis explores various discursive arenas of the institution such as the museum, the temporary exhibition and the permanent collection. Central to developing the methodology are concepts such as agency, revisionist history and cultural modernity.

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This thesis addresses a gap in scholarship by centering curators at often-overlooked university art institutions in the Appalachian region in order to analyze the practical applications of feminist curatorial methodologies in comparison to established feminist curatorial scholarship Three case studies focus on the Reece Museum at Eastern Tennessee State University, the Art in the Libraries initiative at West Virginia University, and the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University. This study uses qualitative and anecdotal data collection methods, such as surveys and one-on-one interviews to demonstrate how feminist methodologies are employed as a theoretically informed curatorial practice, following the framework originally developed in feminist curatorial scholarship. An analysis of feminist curatorial scholarship reveals three core principles of feminist curating: institutional critique, collaboration and engagement, and inventive exhibition strategies. Data analysis found that staff at these three university institutions utilize various intersectional methodologies under the umbrella of feminist interventions when creating exhibitions in their respective institutions. The concept of "feminist curating," as understood and expressed by the staff, has evolved from traditional gender-centered approaches to address a broader scope of socio-economic inequalities as well as power dynamics within museums It is intended to serve as an entry point for further critique of self-described curatorial feminist methods and their practical implementations, in order to analyze what these strategies and practices look like, and how they are intended to affect the university community. / Master of Arts / This thesis explores the feminist practices of curatorial staff from three university art institutions in Appalachia: the Reece Museum at Eastern Tennessee State University, the Art in the Libraries initiative at West Virginia University, and the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University, and connects their work to the larger landscape of feminist curatorial scholarship. The self-described feminist interventions in these curatorial practices aim to disrupt power hierarchies present in museums and other exhibition spaces. A tradition of feminist curating initially served as a method for highlighting women artists and questioning the underlying societal systems that led to their exclusion from the art world, however, this thesis found that contemporary iterations of feminist curating now have an expanded focus to include other historically marginalized populations. Despite the change in scope, both contemporary and historic feminist curators utilize three primary feminist approaches that are common to a variety of curatorial methods: institutional critique, collaboration and engagement, and inventive exhibition strategies. These three methods are continued threads that link feminist curatorial methodologies over time and provide a basis for analyzing distinctions between traditional feminist curatorial methods, feminist curating in scholarship, and how feminist interventions are implemented in a practical sense at university institutions in the Appalachian region.

This thesis explores representations of the Holocaust in the Jewish Museum Berlin and the impact of commercialism on representational choices. Daniel Libeskind’s bold architectural design, which ultimately became the Jewish Museum Berlin, is in many ways a Holocaust memorial. By exploring curatorial strategies in regards to exhibition design and content, this thesis analyzes the debates within the Jewish Museum Berlin over the appropriate manner to represent the Holocaust to the museum-going public in contemporary Germany. This thesis argues that commercialism and the prospects of commercial viability played a significant role in curatorial decisions concerning exhibition narrative. Germany leads the world in acknowledging and exploring their past social crimes but, this thesis argues, an important opportunity for atonement was lost when the administration of the Jewish Museum Berlin privileged commercial success over the presentation of more difficult and uncomfortable, yet socially necessary, representations of the horror of the Holocaust.

This thesis explores representations of the Holocaust in the Jewish Museum Berlin and the impact of commercialism on representational choices. Daniel Libeskind’s bold architectural design, which ultimately became the Jewish Museum Berlin, is in many ways a Holocaust memorial. By exploring curatorial strategies in regards to exhibition design and content, this thesis analyzes the debates within the Jewish Museum Berlin over the appropriate manner to represent the Holocaust to the museum-going public in contemporary Germany. This thesis argues that commercialism and the prospects of commercial viability played a significant role in curatorial decisions concerning exhibition narrative. Germany leads the world in acknowledging and exploring their past social crimes but, this thesis argues, an important opportunity for atonement was lost when the administration of the Jewish Museum Berlin privileged commercial success over the presentation of more difficult and uncomfortable, yet socially necessary, representations of the horror of the Holocaust.

This thesis aims to investigate how a shift of the context in which artwork is presented necessitates ashift in curatorial approach. The discussion considers the overlapping categories of public andprivate in the spaces in which art is presented and encountered within the public sphere.By critically engaging with public sphere discourse, I construct a theoretical perspective rooted inChantal Mouffe's concept of agonistic space. I advocate an adaptive curatorial approach whichregards potential audiences as plural and fragmented. This perspective is then used as a lens throughwhich to analyse the curatorial strategies operative within three case studies of exhibition projectsfrom the artistic practice of Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, and to reflect on the future potential foragonistic curatorial approaches.

I aim to showcase post-African female identity through the exhibition, The princess in the veld. The exhibition displays selected works produced by South African women artists, underpinned by the proposed curatorial framework. This curatorial approach is feminist, and may allow for a liminal reading of local female identity. I premise my theorised curatorial framework liminally, in-between binary oppositions. This position allows for a feminist position and/or reading of female identities that simultaneously allude to, and reject a so-called local (essentialised) women’s art production within the ambit of global, Western dominated feminism. I argue that, for such a display to be successful, an alternative curatorial space is needed. For this purpose, I introduce the notion of heterotopia, a counter-space, to renegotiate binaries and to render identity formations temporarily in-between prevailing norms. This heterotopic counter-curatorial space is realised through an exhibition that employs the medium of video, rather than conventional exhibition media installed in real space. An exploration of specified key local and international survey exhibitions foregrounding women’s concerns from the 1980s onwards, serves to inform my theorised curatorial framework. The research embarks on an investigation of a recent large-scale exhibition hosted in France, to gain an understanding of the pitfalls prevalent in curating an exhibition of artwork produced by women. From a feminist standpoint, I critically analyse this display to suggest more inclusive alternative curatorial strategies to shift the conventionally Western approach followed by this curator. The revisionist, feminist, re-reading of certain South African curated exhibitions from both the apartheid and post-apartheid periods proposes a feminist trajectory that follows the shaping of local women’s identities, which remain deeply inscribed in this country’s politics and histories. This section of the survey underlines local post- African female identity as liminal and in flux, through the investigation of seminal exhibitions and artworks produced by South African women. I argue that this liminal account allows for an inclusive and extended understanding of women, while explicating the South African multicultural dispensation wherein the post-African woman operates. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / National Research Foundation / University of Pretoria / Visual Arts / DPhil / Unrestricted

The aim of following thesis is to demonstrate the potentials of reassessing camp into a question of method. While others have argued for the definition of camp to lie in: an aesthetic; a question of taste; the extravagant theatrical; the male gay sensibility; or as an expression of parody, this thesis suggests that camp is to be found in the performative act of readings. With emphasis on ‘decoding language’, ‘the signifier/signified’ and ‘the camp eye’ I will argue for the relevance of ‘camp as method’ and situate former stated in relation to Bhabha’s concept of ‘conversational art’; a deconstructional examination of values of aesthetic experiences set into dialogue. Demonstrating for such conceptualization three theoretical approaches and themes will be outlined. First, a historical overview of camp followed by a reassessment of camp into a method. Second, an examination of possible extensions to the concept of rereading strategies within camp, including theories on queer phenomenology; queer space and time; topias and non-places; theories of curatorial methods and its agencies. And last, I will do an analysis of Moyra Davey’s video Hemlock Forest and show how Davey’s use and reference towards Chantal Akerman can be read as camp and constitutes ‘camp as method’ according to suggested reassessment.

Contemporary art spaces are typically structured in accordance with a visual paradigm. However, sound has the capacity to leak into other spaces and does not conform to visual logics. Still, sounding artworks are frequently presented in these spaces. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to examine the effects of leaking sounding works within art spaces with an emphasis on the sensory experience of sound, and to further the understanding of how this can be operationalised curatorially. The research is focused on these questions: How is sound operating to produce experiential effects in the respective exhibition situations? What are the transformative potentials of sounding works in art spaces? What are the curatorial implications of these effects? The study investigates two cases, the exhibitions Mother Courage and Her Children (2022) and Undamming Rivers (2022) that both provide examples of the interactions of sounding works in contemporary art spaces. The material is gathered through observation and analysed using the theory of performativity. The analysis defines a set of terms that describe different experiences of sounding works in the art spaces. Furthermore, these effects are shown to operate transformatively on the art event as aspects of a contemporaneous production and reception of the art. The concluding discussion elaborates on the curatorial implications of these terms in the curation of sounding works to show how sonic leakage facilitates definition of space, movement through space, and a layering of experience.