UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND, JOHANNESBURG

Postgraduate Courses Outline

Honours and Master by Coursework

Art and Heritage in Africa (HART4001)and African Art History (HART7002)

In February 2002 the Standard Bank Gallery hosted a major exhibition of historical Nigerian art from the private collection of Mr Vittorino Meneghelli. The show included a number of works from the “ancient” Nigerian cultures of Nok, Igbo Ukwu, Ife, Benin and the Calabar region. In addition historical pieces from various ethnic groups including the Yoruba, Igbo, Urhobo, Ijo, Nupe, Idoma and Tiv were on show. The ownership of such material and the trade in these objects on the global art market has raised a storm of debate around heritage and national curatorship, culminating in a Time Magazine article on the issue in the same year. In this course we will deal with both the construction of the exhibition as a form of heritage display, and with the issues around heritage and notions of the African Renaissance. The focus of the first seminar papers will be on the Nigerian material, second seminars will look to other African cases and term papers will extrapolate the issues to an examination of the South African situation.

We will begin the course with a reading of some core articles on issues of heritage and repatriation of objects, and from there we will move on to a consideration of how particular cultures are fitted into national schemes of heritage and identity, through seminars on particular topics. Students will come to have an understanding of different African historical cultures and their arts through these papers and they will explore ways in which heritage, in the form of exhibited objects, can be publicised. As notions of heritage filter into education, advertising, and, as they are often politically manipulated, students will be expected to take a critical stance to the material and the issues with which they engage. We will visit the Meneghelli exhibit which has been set up in a permanent, private venue in Germiston and consider the issues which such private ownership and display raises. Each student will write and present two seminar papers and a critical essay.

Art: A Visual Anthropology of the Body (HART4003)and Art: A Visual Anthropology of the Body (HART7005)

This course will start from the premise that all cultures conceptualise the human body in particular ways, that the “natural” body is as much a construct as the “social” body. Thus societies, located in different times and places/spaces, have all developed systems of classifications of the body, and body practices which match them. Most cultures define notions of beauty within their classification systems, as well as its opposites. These are often expressed visually and visibly through a large variety of forms of body modification and masking. Such modifications are often linked to status and gender, but also to occupation and ritual, especially to the spaces of liminality as discussed by Victor Turner and Mary Douglas. Theories of the body, have, however been framed largely in terms of western paradigms, often drawing on theories originating with Freud and western psychological analysis. It is often assumed that these theories will necessarily fit all manifestations of body-practices, but it is an area that is largely untested, and therefore highly problematic. Some of the writing does draw on comparative anthropological analysis, but this needs to be examined and extended. Thus, while we may start from the premise that the body is socially constructed, we have to be aware of the different paradigms that inform that construction. In this course we will work with at various theoretical models for understanding the ways in which the body is constructed and to examine their relevance to a wide range of visual and visibly manifested cultural practices. The emphasis will always be on the visual and visible manifestations of body practices and representations of the body in different times and places, the ways in which they communicate and construct ideas about the body as a constructed entity. Each student will write and present two seminar papers and a critical essay.

Art: Museums, Display and the Writing of Art’s Histories (HART4004)and Art: Museums, Display and the Writing of Art’s Histories (HART7006)

This course considers the ways in which the display and exhibition of art affects the writing of art’s histories. We have identified a number of exhibitions which have been important in developing new approaches to the study of particular aspects of art history. Preliminary readings on museums and exhibitions are used to introduce some of the issues. Students are expected to engage with theoretical debates around the public sphere and the debates around art history as a discipline. Each of you will be asked to examine one of those exhibitions in the context of the literature on the subject/s of the exhibitions. Some of these exhibitions were concerned with large topics, others with single artists, but in all cases they are important markers in the writing of particular histories. Each student will write and present two seminar papers and a critical essay.

Art & Architecture: Heritage in the Postcolonial World (WSOA4021) and Art & Architecture: Heritage in the Postcolonial World (WSOA7034)

This course will examine later twentieth-century and contemporary art and architecture of former colonial countries in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. Methodological paradigms drawn from post-modern and post-colonial theory will be used in setting up debates about post-colonial national reconstruction efforts, and how these are played out in terms of art and architecture and the imag(in)ing of post-colonial identities. Students will have acquired knowledge of different sites of artistic and cultural production from various post-colonial countries. They will have engaged with various methodological and theoretical paradigms as they relate to notions of postcolonialism and identity, and will have gained an understanding of cultural politics through an examination of key texts. The course will be taught entirely by seminars, discussion of readings and individual consultation times. Each student will write and present two seminar papers and a critical essay.

Curating Exhibitions: The Politics and Aesthetics of Display (WSOA4006)and Curating Exhibitions: The Politics and Aesthetics of Display (WSOA7011)

Co-taught by Heritage Studies and History of Art, this course examines the practices, roles and effects of curating in contemporary society. Through seminars, site visits and guest lectures, the course explores the evolving roles of curator, the constitution of audiences and publics for exhibitions, the role of different forms of display in making objects ‘speak’, and practices outside the white cube. Students are expected to participate in an internship programme at Johannesburg Art Gallery, Wits Art Museum or MuseumAfrica. Students are further expected to curate an exhibition and write a catalogue essay during the course. By the end of the course, students should be able to draw on their experiences of curating a group exhibition, and be able to reflect critically on their own work. They should have gained practical experience in a professional curating environment through an internship programme. And they should have a critical understanding of curating practices, relations of power and the politics of display, and should be able to express this understanding both in verbal presentation and in writing.