Writing white on black : modernism as discursive paradigm in South African writing on modern Black art
Date
2006-03
Authors
Van Robbroeck, Lize
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch
Abstract
In this thesis I deconstruct key concepts, terminologies, and rhetorical conventions employed in white South
African writing on modern black art. I trace the genealogy of the dominant discursive practices of the
apartheid era to the cultural discourses of the colonial era, which in turn had their origins in the
Enlightenment. This genealogical tracing aims to demonstrate that South African art writing of the 20th
century partook of a tradition of Western writing that was primarily intent upon producing the Western
subject as a rational Enlightenment agent via the debased objectification of the colonial Other. In the
process of the deconstruction, I identify the most significant discursive shifts that occurred from the 1930’s,
when the first publications emerged, to the 1990’s, when South Africa’s new political dispensation opened
up a different cultural landscape.
Description
Thesis (PhD (Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006.
Keywords
Dissertations -- Art, Theses -- Art, Dissertations -- Visual arts, Theses -- Visual arts, Art criticism -- South Africa -- Authorship, Art, Black -- South Africa, Art, South African -- 20th century -- Political aspects, Art and society -- South Africa, Modernism (Aesthetics)