Abstract This article describes a study which explored a methodology suitable for studio- based visual art research. The study drew upon an ethnographic and cultural phenomenon manifesting in a social media conversation, with art practice emerging through a process of transmediation. The exploration proposes a methodology which integrates interdisciplinary concepts, such as semiotics, within related

Abstract In this article, I explore how a widely celebrated African philosophy of being, Ubuntu, is artistically expressed and imagined. I provide a formative theorisation of Ubuntu aesthetics, or an aesthetics of Ubuntu, through an analysis of selected artworks produced by black artists depicting urban black life in South Africa during the twentieth century. The complicated and polarised experiences

Abstract This article interrogates the visual language surrounding the South African Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) agenda, by rhetorically analysing stock images used in a prominent 4IR publication. This study serves to contribute to the ongoing critical discussion surrounding the general legitimacy and local propriety of the global 4IR narrative, which has been enthusiastically adopted by the

Abstract Visual arts such as painting have been explored in the light of narratological concepts, but installation art has not received similar comprehensive narratological attention. The focus of the present article is to apply the four elements of narrative, namely time, space, character, and event, as conceptualised by Mieke Bal, to an exploration of a selection of visual artworks with an emphasis

(2021). Editorial. de arte: Vol. 56, No. 2-3, pp. 1-3.

Abstract Presently, many states in the Middle East are experiencing instability and mass displacement due to political violence. In the wake of these upheavals, and particularly post 9/11, a spotlight has fallen on art from the region, and more specifically on art with violence and political conflict as theme. This article investigates the ways in which three artists in diaspora from the Middle East

Abstract In this article I compare the research methods of two visually trained artists: Elizabeth Goodall and Walter Battiss. Both were working at the beginning of the twentieth century in the emerging field of rock art studies in southern Africa. Independently of each other and for different reasons, Goodall and Battiss devoted considerable time and energy to studying and recording the rock art at

(2021). Editorial. de arte: Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 1-4.

Abstract This article engages with the haunting experiences associated with the Ntaba kaNdoda monument, not as a re-enactment to recreate past events, but as an exercise in critical visual arts intervention. It further unpacks notions of memory and performative memorialisation in the former Ciskei. Ntaba kaNdoda is associated with Dr Lennox L. W. Sebe, former president of the Ciskei, who remains a

Abstract The aim of this article is twofold: to raise awareness of collective cultural heritage and identity and to promote the value of museum and archival material through a dynamic and appealing approach based on artistic inspiration and digital technology. The Maria Katrakis South African Hellenic Archive, officially established in Johannesburg in 1996, is used as a paradigm. It was chosen thanks

(2021). Conversations across Place. Vol. 1, Reckoning With an Entangled World. de arte: Vol. 56, No. 2-3, pp. 109-113.

Abstract In the age of historicism, stylistic choices were simultaneously projections of identity. At the same time, the idea that the recovery of a historic style would also resurrect the “spirit” of a particular era represented both the supreme hope and the greatest fear of historicism. Ghosts therefore acted as figures of memory who were summoned as correctives of current conceptions of history

(2021). African Somaesthetics: Cultures, Feminisms, Politics, edited by Catherine F. Botha. de arte: Vol. 56, No. 2-3, pp. 103-108.

(2021). From Memory to Marble: The Historical Frieze of the Voortrekker Monument, by Elizabeth Rankin and Rolf Michael Schneider. de arte: Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 107-111.

Abstract For her artwork Chimera (White Edition) (2001), Minnette Vári digitally recorded the panels of the Hall of Heroes found within the Voortrekker Monument and later edited the footage, inserting her own body within these scenes while performing as the mythological Chimera. In so doing, she constructs a hybrid monstrous figure which merges in part with the existing relief sculpture while simultaneously

Abstract The artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) is a highly regarded master of the Dutch Golden Age, and consequently the subject of extensive international research. Museums worldwide give him pride of place in their collections. Given the artist’s established prominence it is therefore shocking that in the last fifty years researchers have been able to successfully challenge the status of hundreds

(2020). Editorial. de arte: Vol. 55, No. 3, pp. 1-2.

Abstract In this article, I discuss the perceived failure of the second Johannesburg biennale, Trade Routes: History amd Geography, curated by Okwui Enwezor in 1997. Although curating can be used as a socio-critical tool, Enwezor's authorial curatorial model as witnessed in Trade Routes is criticised for being non-responsive towards issues the South African public was actively dealing with in 1997

Abstract The purpose of this article is to emphasise the importance of exhibiting archival records in art museum spaces as a knowledge development and information dissemination stance. The article also draws attention to the limitations that are encountered in fostering the public programming of archives through digital technology in art museums. The 2013 Revised White Paper on Arts, Culture and Heritage

Abstract The production of traditional earthenware is a prehistorical/archaeological and historical practice among women in Mpraeso, in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Although pottery has been a vibrant industry in Mpraeso since prehistorical and historical times, there is little known research or published literature regarding the raw materials used, the lifecycle of the production process, the tools

(2020). Civilising Grass: The Art of the Lawn on the South African Highveld. de arte: Vol. 55, No. 3, pp. 102-105.

Abstract Censorship became increasingly acute in South Africa during the 1960s. Influenced by Dutch Reformed Church leaders, the apartheid government sought to proscribe artistic works that expressed opposition to the politics and ideologies of the time. This article explores the Aidron Duckworth case of 1971 as part of an anti-censorship campaign organised by the Pasquino Society. Duckworth exhibited

Abstract While higher education (HE) institutions in South Africa have become demographically ever more diverse, transcultural contact among students and staff members has seemingly failed to mend race-based prejudices and structural inequality. By acknowledging the embeddedness of symbolic violence in physical space and lived experience, this article proposes an experimental and embodied approach

(2020). Between Dreams and Realities: A History of the South African National Gallery, 1871–2017. de arte. Ahead of Print.

Abstract Teaching mathematical and geometric concepts through art forms that are a part of indigenous knowledge systems (IKSs) has become a key aspect of pedagogical transformation in many national arts and sciences curricula. This article delves into the nuances of artistic innovation, marketing, and mathematical process in contemporary Zulu, South Sotho, and Venda ceramic practices in both individual

Abstract Africa has a legacy of ceramic making spanning thousands of years, yet the continent has also been the recipient of ceramics made elsewhere, which arrived along various trade networks. This article refers to historical Asian trade ceramics that reached eastern and southern Africa on well-established Indian Ocean trade networks long before the arrival of European maritime trading companies

Abstract This article explores ceramics production in the Modern period in South Africa and Lesotho via a contemporary reinterpretation of the oeuvre of the pioneer Mosotho sculptor Samuele Makoanyane (1909–1944). The research methodology includes a critical examination of images of works by Makoanyane in South African public collections, a literature survey of Modern South African and African ceramic

Abstract This reflection on practice develops the idea of a skin metaphor in the work of a selection of contemporary South African artists working in clay. In particular, it discusses selected works by Juliet Armstrong and Andile Dyalvane in relation to the author's own practice. The author proposes that body- and skin-like forms can speak about how we see ourselves and others within post-apartheid

Abstract The movement of objects both within and across contexts often helps to define social relations. This article explores this notion by focusing on five specific examples of pottery production and use in the history of southern Africa, with examples ranging from early Cape colonial coarse earthenware vessels to 19th- and 20th-century pots produced in and around the central interior, and contemporary

Abstract In this article, attention is drawn to stories arising from some southern African contemporary everyday ceramics utilityware created by selected local South African eastern seaboard potters, with an eye to identifying certain characteristics that result in works by these potters being most regularly used in the writer's household and studio. This conversation then takes a prehistoric turn

ABSTRACT Over the past few decades, numerous prominent authors in various spheres of design discourse have discussed the rhetorical potency of type “icons” and how they come to embody cultural connotation. As icons, typefaces offer a universal language system—an expansive visual vocabulary that immediately references what we already know of their context. Iconic typefaces and their letterforms are

ABSTRACT The process of making art, art itself, and the effects of art can be cruel to those who are, often unwillingly or by virtue of being unable to consent, a part of the process. Even though the thought of restricting, controlling, or censoring art is frowned upon, many would agree that cruelty ought to be avoided, condemned, and discouraged. To frame my discussion, I use the term “cruel art”

In a collaborative project at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), students from the Visual Arts and the Drama and Performance Studies programmes explored institutional space through site-respon...

ABSTRACT This article explores the art practice of Hannalie Taute vis-à-vis the discourses of ordentlikheid (respectability) and the volksmoeder (mother of the nation). I begin by offering theoretical frameworks for these discursive structures, as well as a selective historical trajectory of their development, with major emphasis on Afrikaner femininity and Afrikaner women's domestic labour. Through

Acts of Transgression, edited by Jay Pather and Catherine Boulle, speaks to the aesthetics of crises observed in performance or “live art” in contemporary South Africa. The subversive nature of the performances discussed in this book is related to lingering emotions of anger, resentment, and dispossession, but also to a way of articulating the unsayable—the desire to know, to say, and to be (Braidotti

ABSTRACT In the 1960s, during the years in which apartheid was to become fully entrenched in South Africa and black Africans relegated to second-class citizen status, there was an apparently paradoxical growth of interest in art circles in the art of black Africans. Two major players in the Johannesburg art market who acquired large collections of historical African art and promoted contemporary forms

This article reflects on some of the limitations and challenges of recent student protest movements in South Africa, with a specific focus on their activism on issues of cultural politics. It artic...

Although not monuments in the traditional sense, modernist Afrikaans Protestant churches erected during the 20th century are reminders of the wealth of the Afrikaner people, the stringent union of ...

Despite public outrage from some quarters, claiming that the city’s history was being erased, in 2015 the (white) Mayor of New Orleans, with the support of the black-majority City Council, voted to...

This article conceptualises the challenges that curators of the visual arts working in post-conflict contexts face in terms of doing justice to the competing narratives and representations of past ...

This article examines two memorial projects in El Salvador, the Monument to Memory and Truth, unveiled in 2003, and the Reconciliation Sculpture Park, inaugurated in 2017. The first is a civil soci...

This article draws attention to two spray-painting actions that occurred simultaneously in the city of Sao Paulo (Brazil) in 2016, when two large-scale public artworks with a common theme were targ...

ABSTRACTThis article examines two projects by Jonathan Jones, an Australian artist of Wiradjuri/ Kamilaroi descent. The first addresses a series of works that honour William Barak, an artist and fr...

ABSTRACTHistorically framed as a “violent” medium, photography poses a series of ethical questions about what it means to look at vulnerable individuals. Yet, when it comes to photographs of the cl...

ABSTRACT Ecological art responds to environmental degradation and often aims to restore ecosystems through arts practice. Some ecological artists devote their practice to motivating people to protect small species, particularly by increasing awareness about the role these creatures play in local ecosystems. In this article, I discuss two South African ecological performance works that encouraged close

ABSTRACT This essay traces the artistic collaborations between William Kentridge and two Johannesburg-based printmaking studios: Artist Proof Studio (APS) and the David Krut Print Workshop (DKW). It is intentionally descriptive, in order to document the process of collaboration between the artist and master printers in the making of a series of composite prints based on Kentridge’s 2016 Tiber River

ABSTRACT There is a saying attributed to Winston Churchill that goes, “History is written by the victors,” indicating that all histories are subjective and biased in some way. This was certainly true for South Africa under the Nationalist regime where the exploits of Afrikaner colonialism were glorified, and the majority of the population were mere “bit players” at best and vilified as savages at worst

Art Movements and the Discourse of Acknowledgements and Distinctions by Themba Tsotsi is a highly theoretical and complex read and yet somewhat of a landmark when considering the vast terrain covered, which is done quite exhaustively in twelve chapters. While the book overtly engages with visual culture, it ironically has no images. The ideas espoused by this individually authored text are synonymous

Abstract This article outlines the history of the “comfort woman” statue from its emergence in Seoul to its incarnations in the United States up to the present moment. Its aim is to explore the debates regarding its installations and to account for shifting discursive fields with its changing localities from South Korea to the United States. Particular attention is paid to the controversies concerning

Abstract Derived from a distinction that J. L. Austin drew between words that are “constative” and those that are “performative,” performativity, as Von Hantelmann (2014) explains, marks a shift in approach “from what an artwork depicts and represents to the effects and experiences that it produces.” In highlighting the interpretative process, it also emphasises meaning-making as relative. A concept

Abstract The Colebrook Reconciliation Park is Australia’s oldest and most extensive memorial to acknowledge the forced separation of Aboriginal children from their families and communities, known as the “Stolen Generations.” It covers the site of the former Colebrook Home, an institution for Aboriginal children from 1942–1972. In this paper, I argue that the Colebrook Reconciliation Park can be understood

Abstract The act of defacing public monuments as a form of protest is by no means a new or a U.S.-based phenomenon. Roughly two weeks after white supremacists convened in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 to protest the removal of Confederate monuments within the city, killing one counter-protester and wounding several others, however, an act of vandalism was reported in nearby Richmond, the

Abstract Monument Avenue, a national historic landmark in Richmond, Virginia, has long been famous for its grand portrait monuments honouring local Civil War “heroes.” In 1996, the memorial landscape changed radically with the addition of a bronze portrait statue of Arthur Ashe, a black American who was honoured for his accomplishments as an international tennis star, an author, and a humanitarian

Abstract Prejudicial public art is a visible yet often ignored social and cultural problem. Recently, however, it has commanded popular and mass media attention as increasing numbers of publics around the world have begun to grapple with its meanings and messages and take the history that it embodies to task. In September 2017, for example, New York mayor, Bill de Blasio, appointed a commission to