Tracy Murinik On show in Cape Town
‘Put the mauve bowl with that green one, and grab that vase: they’re just fantastic together!” she screamed. Such was my humble introduction to the Beezy Bailey Art Factory and Shop, and ”she” was an obviously excited and ardent shopper who had (obviously) just discovered the perfect match of living-room accessories to match the new lounge suite.
Downstairs, as you enter the newly- refurbished building on the corner of Buiten and Long Streets, is the Shop, stocked with the Beezy range of casual/trendy homeware and homewear, from handpainted ceramics to Beezy-print T- shirts, oven gloves, dressing gowns and scatter cushions, all of which can be readily assembled to create a camouflage of easy living (you can even get your tea cozy to match your curtains). Choose between the naughty kitties, or the Lee Ping Zing designs. And there are also postcards.
The press release describes the Factory as ”a unique concept aimed at closing the gap between fine art and popular culture”. And sure enough, between the shop downstairs and the Art Gallery on the first floor, is an interim space featuring a coffee and juice-bar which allows you to look out through the glass-panelled walls into the printmaking studio, all from the comfort of some Beezy chairs and sofas. The Art Gallery, in the adjoining space, similarly offers a full frontal view of the ceramic studio. In this instance, however, you’re surrounded by original Beezy prints, oil paintings and sculptures.
The effect is interesting: the mild voyeurism of being able to watch the artists at work is a combination of experiencing the ”romance” of creativity in action and a performance in its own right.
It also engages (I would like to think) with a demystification of artmaking, as industry, where the sanctity of the original is flouted by the idea of a factory which can reproduce the art object in bulk.
By extension, a similar ambivalence exists in relation to the works in the Art Gallery. The series of Lee Ping Zing, the adventures of Bailey’s mythical character based upon ceremonial Chinese bank notes, toy with the possibilities of artistic realms between fantastic creative play and trashy kitsch. And as such, they are quite wonderful.
But there is a contradiction that happens in terms of the space as a whole, and the said desire to somehow bridge the perceived ”gap between fine art and popular culture”. There is much art being produced at present which self-consciously engages with this challenge in dynamic ways. There are artworks being produced which are accessible as cultural icons and as attainable commodity items, exciting, intelligent artifacts which exist beyond the art/craft debate.
Bailey’s Art Gallery still insists, to some extent (despite an appreciated self- conscious irony), upon a distinction being made between upstairs and downstairs; functional commodities, and finer commodities. The gimmick of touting accessibility to artworks as being centred around a type of snobbery that would exclude or alienate certain people is obscured by the notable differentiation in price, for example. And an anxiety of classification still exists.
This is not, however, to dismiss the space or the artist – this is a project that should be closely watched, which offers exciting possibilities.
The Beezy Bailey Art Factory and Shop can be found on the corner of Buiten and Long Streets, Cape Town