Out of sight : re-imagining Graaff's pool

This paper attempts to set out the parameters for a discussion of my Masters exhibition, entitled Out of Sight. It traces out the progress of this exhibition over the course of two years, attempting to account for the parallel development of my work across the media of sculpture, drawing and figure painting. As such the paper traces out my engagement with the two major thematic concerns of my masters exhibition: the representation of the gay male body and architectural space and site. The latter concerns both my strategies for the re-modelling of the gallery space, and my approach to the representation of the specific site of Graaff's Pool, on the Sea Point Promenade in Cape Town. I set out to explain how this site, located in a liminal space, geologically, architecturally and historically, becomes a nodal point for the concerns of my masters project. As such, I begin to trace out the .themes that intersect in my sculptural re-presentations of the site of Graaff's pool operating within zones of visibility and invisibility. My translation of this site into a site-specific installation in the gallery space intentionally disturbs the viewer's ability to see, in its treatment of scale and surface, as well as obstructs and directs their movement through the space. This discussion of visibility lin visibility extends to my treatment of the figure in drawings and watercolours, paying particular attention to my working of the surface in order to trouble the act of looking, hence the visibility or presence of the figure. This enables me to introduce ideas around the difficulties of representation in general, but particularly of the gay male body and the expression of a gay male subjectivity. I introduce into my discussion, if cautiously, the ideas of Michel Foucault and Mikhael Bakhtin. I do not in any way present a synthesis of these ideas, but begin to introduce their thinking as a way of reading specific works in the exhibition. As such, I trace out a possible connection between Foucault's idea of powerlknowledge and the invisible operation of disciplinary power as placing limits on the representation of the gay male body, and as such on its visibility.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Michaelis School of Fine Art

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Brett, Justin

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• MacKenny, Virginia

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7803

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/7803