Brenda Atkinson On show in Johannesburg
The opening of the Wits group exhibition Histories of the Present was a beautiful moment in contemporary art history. As freakish French multimedia artist Orlan looked on in horror, Steven Cohen douched fake blood onto a cheesy thrift-shop painting of a serenely bare-breasted young girl.
Later, Orlan – the queen of the cut, the silicone sister, the guru of gore – arched her invisible eyebrows and declared Cohen a misogynist who had desecrated her own woman’s body.
As if this were not enough, visitors to the opening had to sit through a lengthy and unforgivably indulgent monologue by Mark Hipper, who still seems to think the converted care whether or not he is, in fact, an unspeakable child pornographer.
Histories of the Present has a raw documentary edginess that makes it well worth a visit. Curated on a shoe- string budget by Fine Art masters student Kathryn Smith, its eclectic content offers some refreshing perspectives on pop culture.
Cape-based Tony Scullion’s paintings and New York-based William Scarborough’s Suicide installation are the strongest works in the show. Scullion’s two oils, each situated at opposite ends of one wall, are dark and luminous evocations of freakish humanity. In Assessment, a one- nippled, androgynous human grotesque sits against two planes, the lighter plane splashed with the word “Freak”. Given that the figure wields binoculars, the word might refer both to the figure itself, or to those in his/her line of vision.
Similar in concept and aesthetics to the best of graphic novels, the paintings question the idea of “freakishness” with empathy.
Inexplicably, Hipper decided to present a mass of press clippings on the Grahamstown controversy as part of his work, and his paintings – placed between Scullion’s and framed by the photocopied clippings – come across less as challenging art than as indifferent elements of a personal victimography.
Hipper is an accomplished artist, and would have done well to abandon the social activism he has taken on in the face of some misguided criticism of his work.
Ironically, despite the publicity Hipper has accrued, Scarborough’s 1992 Suicide installation is infinitely more shocking, and intelligent in its manipulation of contemporary discourses around the body, freedom of choice, and commodity fetishism.
The installation consists of several parts. One is a series of ENCAD prints titled Suicide Machines, depicting operational suicide machines which Scarborough has designed, tested, and marketed in his position as “CEO” of “Scarborough Industries/The Suicide Company”. Bearing brand-names like The Political Corrector, The Abdominiser, and The Gasmaster, each machine offers the suicidal shopper a custom-made and mess-free way to shuffle off this mortal coil.
An infomercial featuring a besuited Scarborough provides information about the features and functions of each model, and individual catalogues offer guidance under the title Seven Easy Steps to Your Destruction.
In the case of the Political Corrector (for men only), the process involves strapping yourself in and loading a video unit with your favourite porn film. Once erect, your penis activates a guillotine, and, as you bleed to death, poisons can be taken to hasten your self-termination.
Scarborough’s work includes video footage of his appearance on the Jerry Springer Show, when the artist faced the predictably obtuse outrage of middle Americans accusing him of encouraging suicide.
What emerges from the diverse elements of Suicide is a scathing and brilliantly conceived indictment of a commodity-culture that is blind to its own commercial indoctrination, and which denies the prior existence of trauma through sentimentalising narratives.
Histories of the Present insists on the redundancy of the sentimental. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but I’d choose it over a warm bath and a razorblade.
Histories of the Present is on show at the Wits Theatre, Braamfontein