Queer strokes, sexual subjects : gay male artists' representations of male bodies in selected contemporary South African artworks.

Abstract

This dissertation explores how the male body is utilised and visualised by a selection of gay male artists working within the post-Apartheid South African context. The male body is the means by which they represent these concepts of sexuality and identity. The complexity of contemporary visual arts is, in this dissertation, viewed as a signifier of cultural change. The visibility of gay males in South African society (read as a sign), is also reflected in the foregrounding of male bodies in artworks after 1994. Queer theory and theories of representation are used as a conceptual framework, in which readings are presented of how the male body is interpreted and represented as a site of contestation and convergence of power. The politics of sexuality and identity are represented and discussed in this project through the mediums of painting, photography and installation. These different mediums are linked conceptually, in the same way that sex, gender and sexuality are interlinked; influencing, yet not predetermining each other.