Between a Formalist Rock and a Contextually Hard Place: The Gaps and Tensions Challenging Visual Arts Curricula in South African Higher Education

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores approaches to visual arts curricula within the institutional setting of a South African university and considers the characteristics and experiences of undergraduate students. The notion of cultural literacies provides a useful entrance to a discussion of the paradoxes affecting this field. Criteria for academic achievement in visual arts are idiosyncratic and difficult to articulate, while the discourses of contemporary art practice sometimes contradict institutional assessment requirements. The implicit tensions between contextual, relativist practices and formalist outcomes are manifest in institutions globally but exacerbated locally. The disjuncture between students’ and lecturers’ knowledge, skills and expectations are layered with the contextual realities of higher education and the nature of the “artworld” in South Africa. Recent literature on the drive to decolonise curricula is discussed in relation to social realist conceptions of knowledge and knowers, drawing on Bourdieu, Bernstein and Maton. This lens has promise for understanding how visual arts programmes can become more epistemologically diverse, while identifying and retaining “powerful” knowledge. This frames empirical evidence and reflections on challenges facing an undergraduate curriculum in visual arts. The article draws conclusions about the often-tacit nature of visual culture and art practice. Dialectical, research-based approaches suggest the possibility of more responsive and effective curricula.