Erstwhile Boer General Koos de la Rey rides on horseback into the Âforeground of a monochromatic painting by John Meyer. On the opposite wall hangs a work by Johannes Phokela titled Assimilation of the Inevitable; in a Rubenesque scene two naked women are accosted by masked Âsoldiers on horses.
The striking dialogue between these two paintings in the Everard Read Gallery creates a discrete tension defining the rubric of curator Ricky Burnett’s show Horse: Multiple Views of a Singular Beast. As a grand-slam exhibition featuring about 60 artists, this kind of subject matter is surprising only for its simplicity. South African audiences are unaccustomed to such shows. Rather, we have become used to exhibitions that overtly address Âmatters of social relevance associated with a turbulent past and a jaded present.
But Burnett is no stranger to these types of issues. In 1985 he changed the course of South African art history with the groundbreaking show Tributaries in which he challenged the dominant ideology of apartheid by exhibiting black and white artists as equals in a time of racial segregation. “At face value,” Burnett said, “Tributaries can be seen as a simple act of defiance and rebellion whose politics were responding to a simple social discourse.”
However, the show enabled him to activate multiple voices while proving that diversity could also be coherent. Now, with a new set of Âconcerns dominating the cultural imagination, Burnett has again used this formula, albeit to different ends.
His most recent curatorial approach differs in that Burnett did not actively go out to select works for the show. Instead, he approached Âartists and commissioned them to produce work that would provide points in an unfolding conversation. In this way the dialogues within Horse operate on a variety of levels. There is the conversation between the curator and the Âartist, the Âdialogue between the works themselves and the interaction of the works and the gallery space.
A visual treatise
Burnett boasted that his show was about celebrating “beauty, romance and whimsy. I wanted to create an enchanting space.”
Across several mediums, from the more traditional painting and drawing to sculpture and experimental installation, the exhibition is itself a visual treatise on the Ârepresentations of the horse. Entering the Everard Read — and the show continues across the road in the Circa Âgallery — one is greeted by a conservatively painted Knabstrup Filly by Neil Roger. But in a room to the left, almost hidden in the recesses of the gallery foyer, is a collaborative Âinstallation by Clifford Bestall and Wilma Cruise.
Bestall’s wall-size projection evokes the absence of the horse. Over a still, yet alive, projected African landscape, one hears the noise and hum of heat rising from the earth. In one moment one hears the distant galloping of horses, getting louder as they pass. Cruise’s aspect of the installation is a television lying on its back, almost strewn beside the large projection. It shows a felled horse’s legs apparently lying on the ground, possibly writhing in pain.
Emerging from this disturbing, mysterious duality one is greeted by two lighthearted murals executed by Claudia Schneider. The Âplayfulness of the Shongololo Horse with its Âmultiple legs and cartoon-like face is complemented by a bronze sculpture of horse droppings at its feet by Guy du Toit, giving a riposte to the idiom “you can’t polish shit”.
Individual histories
Bones of horses in various manifestations also feature in the works of Bronwyn Lace and Pippa Skotnes. Lace’s work, titled Airs Above the Ground, portrays a deconstructed skeleton floating, suspended by invisible thread. Skotnes’s three skeletons, Book of Blood and Milk, Book of Divine Consolation and Book of Speaking in Tongues, have decorative textual inscriptions on the bones’ surface. Each tells a story about the individual histories of these beasts, asking questions about their far-off existence and experiences that we may never answer.
The animal in the Book of Blood and Milk, sourced from Khayelitsha, had suffered an early death because of malnutrition. The creature in the Book of the Divine Consolation, from the Northern Cape, was shot in the chest and there is evidence of shattered ribs. The horse of the Book of Speaking in Tongues was sourced from a farmer in Pretoria. He had to shoot the animal after it was lamed in an accident.
Each of the works reflects on the human capacity to harness other denizens of the planet, to Âmanipulate circumstance either for recreation or out of necessity.
Everard Read Gallery and Circa Gallery, Jellico Avenue, Rosebank, until October 30. For the exhibition blog visit: horsexhorse.tumblr.com