Repository logo
 

Understanding whiteness in South Africa with specific reference to the art of Brett Murray.

dc.contributor.advisorLeeb-du Toit, Juliette Cecile.
dc.contributor.authorPassmoor, Ross P.
dc.date.accessioned2010-09-09T10:51:09Z
dc.date.available2010-09-09T10:51:09Z
dc.date.created2009
dc.date.issued2009
dc.descriptionThesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.en_US
dc.description.abstractThe white male artist whose self-interrogation attaches to his whiteness, difference and former centrality, inevitably exposes himself to the critical scrutiny of current discourse on race and whiteness studies. In this dissertation I examine the concept and emergence of whiteness as a dominant construct in select socio-historical contexts, more particularly in the colonial sphere. While colonial whiteness has often failed to acknowledge or foreground the faceted nature of its composition, this became particularly marked in a South African context with polarisation in the political, cultural and linguistic spheres. However in encounters with the colonised, unifying pretensions of whiteness prevailed, reinforcing difference along racial lines. I examine the work of white South African male artist Brett Murray, in which the interrogation of whiteness and associated marginalization and invisibility is again foregrounded, but predominantly in a postcolonial context. As Murray cautiously navigates his satirical gaze at the culturally and conceptually flawed hybridity of South African (male) whiteness, he inadvertently exposes a nostalgic gaze at erstwhile racial centrality. I further consider whether as a postcolonial other Murray has in fact been able to transcend racially based self-interrogation by addressing more polemic issues associated with power, corruption and inhumanity that transcend race.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10413/1042
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subjectTheses--Fine art.en_US
dc.subjectArtists--South Africa.en_US
dc.subjectWhite men--South Africa.en_US
dc.subjectWhites--Race identity--South Africa.en_US
dc.subjectWhites in art.en_US
dc.titleUnderstanding whiteness in South Africa with specific reference to the art of Brett Murray.en_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

Files

Original bundle

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Passmoor_RP_2009.pdf
Size:
2.21 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format

License bundle

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.86 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description: