Toes and Bodies
Monday, March 09, 2009
I went to see Kemang Wa Luhulere's show Ubontsi Sharp Sharp at AVA a couple of days ago. I know Kemang from the Gugulective, so I was surprised to see his first solo full of drawings as opposed to Gugulective's normal conceptual performative sculptural stuff. Obviously, it is a good thing to seperate your identities, but I couldn't help a feeling of disappointment that the work wasn't more "clever". As I hung around a bit though, I started to get into them quite a lot. They are intimate sweet drawings, characterised by a humorous line and a narrative of the bizarre (which the press release helps to understand). The more I thought about, the better the show seemed, in concept if not entirely in execution (the whimsical nature did look hurried in areas). It would be very easy for a young black artist to fall to market pressure, and produce easy saleable work (you know, photographs of the exotic body, identity politics stuff, etc). This work was a more honest exploration of family history, personal narratives and expressive drawing. On the other hand, for a first solo outing, it could have been a bit harder hitting, less lazy. Not a memorable show, but worthwhile to see where he develops in the future.
The gallery was also host to a show by Lynne Lomofsky, which further explored her personal illness. Normally I tend to dismiss this sort of stuff as a personal journey, and don't take a second look, but having recently spent a fair share of time near a hospital bed, it is harder to put away out of hand. I was drawn to the images a lot more than I expected from my previous experiences of her stuff. I guess its getting older, trying to understand things I don't like, and why. I'm still not sure whether transforming xrays and scans into paint speaks to me, or if the transformation carries any meaning, but upstairs was a series of 3-d scan dissections of her body which were really interesting. It's like those waxified bodies, you don't and do want to look. And an art made from high medical technology. If the purpose of presenting these scans is (as she says in the press release) to create new meanings and visuals that move away from the diagnostic, I can't help but feel it is a good thing. Morbidly good, personal journey good, but good.
posted by Robert Sloon at 2:00 PM
4 Comments:
3-D scan dissections! I don't know how I feel about that. But I do know that feeling of wanting to look but not at the same time. I think it's great to express personal illness into an art form.
There's this new website that just launched called www.mysoiree.net. It encourages new and upcoming artists and experienced artists to display their work in a virtual studio. I think it's great that we can all experience art in all forms now through the internet!
In a society that is completely twee and prissy about death and suffering, I think Lynne's work is a breath of fresh air. And to me what it says is, that for her to think about this stuff is as part of her daily life as to think about going to the post office. The perception that it is 'too personal' or 'morbid' is a projection by other people, and they should perhaps think about the hurt they wreak by being too hung up and too brainwashed by sanitised advertising to engage with the levels of suffering common to a huge number of people.
Frankly I'm very fucking tired of being forced to know too much personal information about the mating habits of thin people with too much money. They are a small and not very interesting fraction of society, and I wish they'd stop dominating the airspace and invading my privacy.
good review of kemang's work on show, sloon. I felt a bit dissapointed that he didn't risk more, it seemed a bit too easy (and sellable), but perhaps one should take this body of work in context with what else he does
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