Mdluli, Same Chercheuse invitée "Profession culture" (21 juillet - 21 octobre 2014)

Biographie

Same Mdluli's research interest examines the construction of art historical narratives and explores the production of art, its reception, and representation within a South African and international context. She has worked as an administrator at both the Cape Town and Johannesburg Goodman Gallery in 2007 and 2010 respectively and also taught art for a few years at primary school level. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions and won some awards including the 2012 Mentorship Award from the South African Arts Writers & Critics Association and Post Graduate Merit Award from the Wits University. In 2012 and 2013 she was selected as a Junior Research Scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and as a participant at the Diversitas Summer School in Germany respectively.  She is co-founder of the cultural heritage organisation Qriocity and is currently working part time as the programmes co ordinator for the Roger Ballen Foundation in Johannesburg.

 

Bibliographie

  • Review: The Sounds of Imagery, The Citizen, 2 April 2014, p. 20
  • Review: Culture creates community, The Citizen, 2 April 2014, p. 21
  • Defining the ‘rural’ aesthetic: the work of Johannes Segogela, unpublished article, 2013
  • Still trying to bridge the divide, The Citizen, 25 April 2013, p.1
  • The Drill Hall hosts exhibition on Rivonia Trial, City Life, 1 July 2013, p.1
  • Domestic Bliss, Sunday Independent, July 1, 2012, p. 3
  • Resisting Life, Sunday Independent, July 22, 2012, p. 4
  • Colours and compositions: Jazzing up the artistic conversation, The Citizen, 8 November 2012, p. 8
  • Back to basics in Melville, 31 July 2012, www.artlinks.co.za 
  • Paintings and Drawings of Fatima Meer in the context of the struggle narrative at Constitution Hill, MA Research report, 2010

 

Projet de recherche

My research project explores the role of art exhibitions in bringing the work of African artists to the consciousness of the contemporary world, in this case ‘rural’ South Africa artists. Broadly it seeks to explore the questions that arise from the construction of the category of ‘African art’, its representation and precarious transition from ethnology to art. By examining the conditions under which the work of black rural artists in South Africa were included in major national and international art exhibitions of African art during the 1980s, an inquiry is made as to why some or most of these artists have since disappeared and slipped away from the mainstream. As a result this study proposes a review of the content and contexts of these exhibitions so as to determine their role in generating written commentary and critiques that established differentials, which can be argued, were at play in the ways in which rural black artists were included, received and have ultimately disappeared from view in the high art arena. This investigation thus includes a critical analysis of museology as an attempt to demonstrate how institutions generate and frame particular kinds of art historical narratives through the display of art, written texts and inclusion of certain artists.