Corporeal identification in selected works by Berni Searle
- Authors: Taggart, Emma
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Searle, Berni Lacan, Jacques, 1901-1981 -- Criticism and interpretation Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1908-1961 -- Criticism and interpretation Women artists -- South Africa Body art -- South Africa Self-portraits
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2434 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004576
- Description: Through a detailed analysis of a selection of works produced between 1999 and 2003 by the South African artist Berni Searle, this thesis explores the need to theorise a corporeal viewer in the process of interpreting art works. Such an approach is particularly necessary when dealing with an artist such as Searle because her work, which deals predominantly with the theme of identity, appeals not only to conceptual but also to experiential and corporeal understandings of identity. Searle incorporates the viewer into an experience of her own identity through a physical identification that the viewer feels in relation to her work. For viewers this means that they are made aware of how their own identity in the moment of interpretation is contingent on visual, mental and physical components. In order to develop this argument the work of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty is drawn on. These two theorists are very useful for an argument of this nature because both interpret identity as a construction involving an enfolding between the mind and, via the act of vision, the body of the subject. Through an inclusion of the corporeal element in interpretation, this thesis also offers a critique of interpretive theories that would reduce analysis to an interaction between eye and mind by analyzing how the viewer's body participates in the act of looking.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Taggart, Emma
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Searle, Berni Lacan, Jacques, 1901-1981 -- Criticism and interpretation Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1908-1961 -- Criticism and interpretation Women artists -- South Africa Body art -- South Africa Self-portraits
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2434 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004576
- Description: Through a detailed analysis of a selection of works produced between 1999 and 2003 by the South African artist Berni Searle, this thesis explores the need to theorise a corporeal viewer in the process of interpreting art works. Such an approach is particularly necessary when dealing with an artist such as Searle because her work, which deals predominantly with the theme of identity, appeals not only to conceptual but also to experiential and corporeal understandings of identity. Searle incorporates the viewer into an experience of her own identity through a physical identification that the viewer feels in relation to her work. For viewers this means that they are made aware of how their own identity in the moment of interpretation is contingent on visual, mental and physical components. In order to develop this argument the work of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty is drawn on. These two theorists are very useful for an argument of this nature because both interpret identity as a construction involving an enfolding between the mind and, via the act of vision, the body of the subject. Through an inclusion of the corporeal element in interpretation, this thesis also offers a critique of interpretive theories that would reduce analysis to an interaction between eye and mind by analyzing how the viewer's body participates in the act of looking.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Idolatry and the artist's role with special reference to the work and thought of Andy Warhol
- Authors: Waterkeyn, Linda Catherine
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: Warhol, Andy, 1928-1987 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2425 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002221
- Description: This thesis uses Hirsch's dual notion of intention, i. e. conscious, intentional meaning and symptomatic, unconscious meaning, in order to avoid a dead end in the critical assessment of Warhol's work. T.S. Eliot's term "objective correlative" refers to a phenomenon whereby "an inner emotional reality" is evoked by its "external equivalent". (Benet, 1965). Thus, given that no work of art is purely self-referential (as distinct from its being autonomous),Hirsch's notion allows that viewerreconstruction of a painting involves shared values and concerns; that a painting reconstructed by a viewer acquires the status of an icon through which the viewer participates in the artist's sacred cosmos. Sociology of art tends on the whole to extrapolate from actual works to the alleged conditions that gave rise to them. That it cannot predict what specific works will arise from given conditions makes it unscientific. However, its usefulness lies in its ability to reveal what values and concerns are shared by artist and viewer. This is vital for an interpretation of Warhol's work. Warhol's biography leads directly into the meaning of his work. The sickly child of an immigrant steelworker, he grew up in Pittsburgh - an epitome of the technocratic-industrial environment - and was exposed from an early age to a violent and ugly world where the disparity between the super-wealthy and the struggling workers was deeply disturbing. That Warhol himself became a multi-millionaire artistic tycoon is significant, for it means that his works, his icons, were participatory in the very cultural myths and neuroses they appear to display or even despise. That his work has meaning and is open to interpretation there is no doubt. For example, a man-made soup can, as a manifestation and containment of the sacred, is coercive. Here the sacred becomes familiar, affordable and disposable. An electric chair, a man-made instrument of death, gives man supremacy over mortality and the divine prerogative of purging the world of all evil. The essay, however, does not attempt to answer the broader questions raised by Fromm and Roszak about the spiritual emptiness of the twentieth century and the existential crises experienced by those who hunger for meaning and fasten greedily onto anything that seems to proffer a glimpse of something beyond. The essay, nevertheless, strives within this context to elucidate the valid in Warhol's work
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
- Authors: Waterkeyn, Linda Catherine
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: Warhol, Andy, 1928-1987 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2425 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002221
- Description: This thesis uses Hirsch's dual notion of intention, i. e. conscious, intentional meaning and symptomatic, unconscious meaning, in order to avoid a dead end in the critical assessment of Warhol's work. T.S. Eliot's term "objective correlative" refers to a phenomenon whereby "an inner emotional reality" is evoked by its "external equivalent". (Benet, 1965). Thus, given that no work of art is purely self-referential (as distinct from its being autonomous),Hirsch's notion allows that viewerreconstruction of a painting involves shared values and concerns; that a painting reconstructed by a viewer acquires the status of an icon through which the viewer participates in the artist's sacred cosmos. Sociology of art tends on the whole to extrapolate from actual works to the alleged conditions that gave rise to them. That it cannot predict what specific works will arise from given conditions makes it unscientific. However, its usefulness lies in its ability to reveal what values and concerns are shared by artist and viewer. This is vital for an interpretation of Warhol's work. Warhol's biography leads directly into the meaning of his work. The sickly child of an immigrant steelworker, he grew up in Pittsburgh - an epitome of the technocratic-industrial environment - and was exposed from an early age to a violent and ugly world where the disparity between the super-wealthy and the struggling workers was deeply disturbing. That Warhol himself became a multi-millionaire artistic tycoon is significant, for it means that his works, his icons, were participatory in the very cultural myths and neuroses they appear to display or even despise. That his work has meaning and is open to interpretation there is no doubt. For example, a man-made soup can, as a manifestation and containment of the sacred, is coercive. Here the sacred becomes familiar, affordable and disposable. An electric chair, a man-made instrument of death, gives man supremacy over mortality and the divine prerogative of purging the world of all evil. The essay, however, does not attempt to answer the broader questions raised by Fromm and Roszak about the spiritual emptiness of the twentieth century and the existential crises experienced by those who hunger for meaning and fasten greedily onto anything that seems to proffer a glimpse of something beyond. The essay, nevertheless, strives within this context to elucidate the valid in Warhol's work
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
Refugium : an exploration through landscapes of liminality
- Authors: Kaplan, Luke
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:20985 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/5890
- Description: Loosely following a narrative form and structure, this thesis begins, in chapter one, by considering people who occupy a peripheral position in - or on the fringe of - society. In so doing, it analyses the dichotomy created between centre and periphery, the line between qualities or features that are set up as different or opposed. The chapter begins by contextualising my own engagement with the themes and narratives dealt with. It then looks at the representation and significance of historical and cultural characters such as the tramp and the wanderer, the medieval wildman and the outcast, the madman and the prophet, and relates this to some extent to my own narrative. The dichotomy between culture and nature is thus examined here. The paper then moves on, in chapter two, to examine concerns around landscape, and considers how we engage or separate ourselves from it. The theme of walking is examined closely from an experiential, phenomenological standpoint, especially as an activity which allows greater connection to, and engagement with, the landscape. The relationship between landscape, place, and identity is also explored, looking at how identity is interwoven with connection to place, and, broadly, what this might mean for displaced people. These discussions and ideas are then brought to bear again on my personal narrative. In chapter three I explore again the separation between dichotomous concepts as looked at in chapter one; I examine the separations between, and within, people, as well as between people and their environment. Here, however, the line of separation is explored not as an impermeable barrier, but as a liminal space of potential and possibility. With this in mind I look at sacred or liminal places within the landscape, as well as the idea of the sublime. I also consider the camera from this perspective, and finally present my own exhibition and body of work, reviewing it in the light of the narratives and themes explored through the thesis.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Kaplan, Luke
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:20985 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/5890
- Description: Loosely following a narrative form and structure, this thesis begins, in chapter one, by considering people who occupy a peripheral position in - or on the fringe of - society. In so doing, it analyses the dichotomy created between centre and periphery, the line between qualities or features that are set up as different or opposed. The chapter begins by contextualising my own engagement with the themes and narratives dealt with. It then looks at the representation and significance of historical and cultural characters such as the tramp and the wanderer, the medieval wildman and the outcast, the madman and the prophet, and relates this to some extent to my own narrative. The dichotomy between culture and nature is thus examined here. The paper then moves on, in chapter two, to examine concerns around landscape, and considers how we engage or separate ourselves from it. The theme of walking is examined closely from an experiential, phenomenological standpoint, especially as an activity which allows greater connection to, and engagement with, the landscape. The relationship between landscape, place, and identity is also explored, looking at how identity is interwoven with connection to place, and, broadly, what this might mean for displaced people. These discussions and ideas are then brought to bear again on my personal narrative. In chapter three I explore again the separation between dichotomous concepts as looked at in chapter one; I examine the separations between, and within, people, as well as between people and their environment. Here, however, the line of separation is explored not as an impermeable barrier, but as a liminal space of potential and possibility. With this in mind I look at sacred or liminal places within the landscape, as well as the idea of the sublime. I also consider the camera from this perspective, and finally present my own exhibition and body of work, reviewing it in the light of the narratives and themes explored through the thesis.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
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