/ 19 March 2012

Mind over matters

Mind Over Matters

Since they left the country in 1985, Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky, working collectively as Rosenclaire, have remained relatively unknown in South Africa. In 2010 they bridged this gap with an exhibition titled Re.Collections at the Goodman Gallery in Cape Town. This year they have brought their work to Johannesburg, their home town, with a show titled Immaterial Matters.

Hidden in the title is the suggestion of the duo’s preoccupation with deconstruction, hinting at the sensory experiences embedded in the layered foundations of their work.

These layers address more of the cool European sensibilities their work references. Working in Italy for the past 25 years seems to have made its mark on the pair’s production.

The history with which the work takes issue is not so much situated in an “expat” reflection of what it means to be on the outside looking in, but rather seems poised to examine history from a purely occidental standpoint.

A glimpse of the South African condition
One does, however, glimpse moments of introspection that reference the South African condition. The most literal of this instance is Shavinovsky’s Other M(Other), a painted porcelain ornament of a domestic worker holding a basin full of writhing white babies, while what is presumed to be her own baby sits at the end of the plinth, alienated from its mother’s care.

When looking at exhibitions by expatriate South Africans, one wonders whether it is entirely necessary to look for relevance and social issues pertaining strictly to the country. To do so would ultimately detract from whatever free sensuousness exists in the art, automatically ghettoising the viewer.

The art of Rosenclaire is indeed sensuous and the South African viewer must presumably go beyond the narcissistic tendency of searching for self-relevance.

However, the one conceptually rich component of the show is the pair’s collaborative work with William Kentridge. Titled Gesture, the work functions as an installation that features two drawings, two sculptures and a DVD component. Referencing a rather elaborate instance in Western art history, in which Robert Rauschenburg appropriated a drawing by Willem de Kooning in order to erase it in a statement against gestural abstraction, the pair has affected the same conceptual mechanism.

The DVD shows a child’s plastic vacuum cleaner that skims the surface of a drawing, erasing its image. Next to the video is the actual drawing, an eroded result of the action, the now-erased drawing by Kentridge. Hanging next to this is a similar drawing, albeit untouched. Tying the conceptual knot of this intervention is an object mounted on a plinth: a tiny vial, sealed with a wax stamp, containing the charcoal dust, which stands as a remnant of the action.

Method of erasure
Further addressing the aestheticised method of erasure is Derrida 3 by Shakinovsky. Stuck on the wall in an intricate pattern is a series of different rubber erasers.

This ephemeral work, far from speaking about the action of mark-making, seems to address the absence of that mark with the spectral potential of the erasers almost existing to deny the process altogether.

Nearby, in an apparent extension of this absence, there is a tiny work mounted on a plinth titled End of the Line (Between Erasure and Composure). On a black surface there are three pencils, sharpened nearly to their ends, with two erasers perched next to them.

Yet, superficially, this work is not just about the potential of mark and erasure that the title suggests, for the tiny objects have a different, hidden materiality. Cast out of bronze and then painted to appear life-like, the objects exist in a different universe, one that conjures a pop sensibility of plasticity, rendering the objects impotent.

Gavronsky’s paintings, which delicately etch out an approach to history that is all about the process of mark and paint, speak in an altogether different vocabulary that nevertheless attempts to establish a dialogue with the conceptually quiet work of Shakinovsky.

Painting is fashionable again
It is true that painting has come back into fashion; in fact, for a while now painting has been invigorated with a new currency that has tested its value around the globe.

But when painting makes itself its own subject matter, in my opinion, it limits the scope of expression. Gavronsky’s chalkboard or slate motifs may attempt to reference Shakinovsky’s minimalist installations, but in reality they become trapped in their own milieu.

But despite its sheer size the exhibition is digestible, leaving the audience gratified, as though having completed a 10-minute crossword.

What is nevertheless alienating is that the show does not entirely come together and at times feels like a schizophrenic and unfinished gathering of objects from an artist’s studio.

Despite their initial interconnectedness, these two speak altogether different languages.

Immaterial Matters runs at the Goodman Gallery, 163 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood, until March 24