The art collection at the University of KwaZulu-Natal: an appraisal of content and purpose.
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Date
2021
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Abstract
This research examines the Art Collection held at the University of KwaZulu-Natal through a
metamodernist (and where relevant metaformalist) paradigm that embraces both modernist and
postmodernist narrative and explores the in-between-ness of these two concepts in a postpostmodern
context. Many universities reappraised their art collections at the end of the
apartheid era to embrace the democratic transformations of their institutions through visual
representation, but no such assessment was undertaken by UKZN making this the first study
of the scholarly merits of the University’s art portfolio. This study coincides with a period of
student and national activism witnessed across South African universities in response to a call
for ‘decolonisation’ and the removal of ‘colonial’ signifiers, prompting a revaluation as to the
‘suitability’ of ‘colonial’ artworks on campuses. An assessment of the portfolio held at the
Centre for Visual Arts demonstrates that no archival management policy has been put in place
to preserve the Collection and, from obvious signs of deterioration and decay, indicates that
the works have been neglected for many years with even basic archival standards not being
applied with material housed in unsuitable facilities. By initially photographing and correlating information obtained from piecemeal inventories, an archival spreadsheet provided a partial
catalogue of the works housed in the UKZN art school. The Collection has been analysed
through Metamodernism as a paradigm, and not merely as a concept as envisaged by the Dutch
scholars Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, together with the application of Greg
Dember’s eleven methods of interpretation. During this analysis, a twelfth method, that of
geocentering, was developed and a new paradigm was identified, metaformalism, which is
derived from metamodernism mediated as a South African formalistic interpretation of the
European theory. This was substantiated by the analysis of five selected artworks held within
the Collection of artists Jack Heath, John Hooper, Rosa Hope, Walter Battiss and Stephen
Inggs. An assessment was also made of the purpose, benefit and potential for art collections
generally and considered the benefits and potential of UKZN’s institutional, teaching and
research collections. It was recognised that artworks displayed on university campuses reflect
the visual culture and socio-political identity of an organisation and also provide a visual record
of an institution’s history and socio-political praxis. Artworks also provide a forum for cultural
and intellectual knowledge exchange with art teaching collections in particular enabling students access to different aspects of an artwork that would ordinarily be denied them in a
museum or gallery environment and where possible, are able to handle the works and
experience tactile sensation making their studies more of an engaged, felt encounter. At UKZN
materials have been used as teaching aids as well as acting as pedagogical signifiers of the
CVA’s former British Formalistic interests and teaching practices which reflect in the works
of CVA past lecturers Rosa Hope and Hilda Ditchburn. Research collections have become
interdisciplinary repositories and not only preserve historical information or cultural
knowledge, but also engender new knowledge. Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic,
it has become the ‘norm’ to collectively share information through open source digital
platforms enabling the networking of material to a wider audience. Although digitalised
collections negate the ability to judge or experience the scale of artworks, so too does it
introduce technological experiences and imagery beyond the peripheries of the human eye and
adds another layer of narrative (or stratosphere) to the artwork. The notion of ‘Africanising’
art collections is also discussed and how this term is, by necessity, an African idiom that
assumes and validates a mythical ‘authenticity’ of African ‘traditional’ culture that is not been
documented and is beyond living memory, thereby creating an invented tradition. The effect
of acculturation on constructing an African vernacular is analysed and is also assessed with its
development based on a hybrid of both traditional and contemporary practices. Comparison is
made with other South African universities that have commissioned new works to reflect the
democratic transformations of their respective institutions. It also considers the national and
international call to remove ‘colonial’ public artworks but, by applying a metaformalist
approach, understands such commemorative icons as sources of collective memory and,
through geocentering, recognises the union of the author, viewer, subject, object, time, space
and a perpetual vortex of narrative with a momentary interaction providing a further layer of
discourse. This thesis concludes with the hypothesis that metaformalism, as opposed to
unmediated metamodernism, becomes a paradigm specifically by reference to an internalised
non-European (African) context and that it is indeed an example of successful ‘Africanising’
of Eurocentric theory and provides a Southern Hemisphere exemplar; metaformalism
maintains an awareness of the origins of metamodernism but initiates a localised repost.
Description
Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.