The fallacy of being by Janet Batet [write-up]

MIS.PLACED (November 2018)

by Janet Batet

The fallacy of misplaced concreteness proposed by Alfred North Whitehead describes the process through which concrete reality is supplanted by an abstraction. Most of the time, this act of reification implies misleading preconceptions around our existence. The recurrence to binary excluding dichotomies in global society has been a systemic attempt to distort and numb social sensitivity and deriving from this practice, we have been witnessing the careful replacement of terminologies in order to justify our detachment from others.

The systematic replacement of the term “refugee” by “immigrant” accompanied by adjectivizations such as “illegal” and “undocumented” in politic discourses and mass media has the intended aim of dissociating our civic and moral obligation toward this growing group of displaced individuals in global society. Under these circumstances, we are witnessing a new invisible mass of displaced people that become misplaced.

Don’t be wrong, the difference is substantial. Something misplaced is moved away, out of its natural emplacement or boundaries but not excluded or forgotten.

Misplaced gathers the proposals of six female contemporary artists who delve into the fallacy of displacement in contemporary society. Assuming their own bodies as the ultimate territory, each of them establishes a personal fable that procures the restoration of the dignity of the misplaced being.

Before entering the main gallery, Anja Marais’ “Up-Flight of the Wingless Bird” (2014 – 2018) receives us inside a vintage King Camper. The mesmerizing yet intimate video-installation effectively transports us into the tormented mood of the ever-transforming character which looping metamorphosis is captured in an exquisite pixilation animation (over 15,000 photographs integrate this video).

The capricious and yet meaningful allegory of the butterflies and the yellow-spotted river turtles in the western Amazon rainforest is the starting point for Carola Bravo’s “Yellow Resourcefulness” (2017). The interactive installation where yellow butterflies come to drink from our tears reminds us of the always present interconnection – at times indecipherable but essential – between all living beings.

Echoing “Yellow Resourcefulness”, “Immigrant Portrait Series” (Carola Bravo, 2015-2016) presents three videos (“Homesick Tears”, “Nostalgic Tears” and “Sad Tears”) in a loop. Based on three of the major Lichtenstein artworks, this ritournelle emphasizes the idea of the artist’s own sacrifice as a food source and resource for others’ life.

Also playing with the analogy of tears, sacrifice, tribute, and perseverance, Nina Surel’s “Vale of Tears” (2018) is an immersive and visceral installation. Mainly integrated by family garments and personal memorabilia feeding crystal teardrops that are suspended from the roof by engulfed women’s stockings about to burst, this installation is a poetic yet dramatic allegory about gender migration and memory.

Architecture of The Mind” (Marina Font, 2017) and “Quote-on-quote Influencer” (Johanna Boccardo, 2018), are both intervened photographs that focus on the psychological aspect of the misplacement. In both artists, the veiled surfaces are highly significant. In the case of Boccardo, the blocking technique so dear to her work implies a sort of palimpsest where the non-permanence resonates through the successive never-ending acts of writing and erasure. While in Boccardo’s work the relation of the subject with the context is essential, in Font’s “Architecture of Mind” we are witnessing an internal time, almost unconscious: the survival mapping of existence.

The dialogic relationship that derives from the counterpoint between “This Libation Song of Yearning” (Anja Marais, 2018) and “Tierra” (Regina Jose Galindo, 2013) becomes essential. In Marais’ work, a prepubescent girl holding an African mask moves forward while carrying several recycled receptacles loaded with ground corn. The totemic figure embodies the ontological scope of human displacement.

In Regina Jose Galindo’s “Tierra”, the stoic, nude female body anchored to its original space, resists the onslaught of the excavator shattering the earth around her. “Tierra” pays tribute to the victims of the genocide perpetrated by former President of Guatemala Jose Efrain Rios Mont. “Tierra” is also a heartbreaking testimony of the growing number of humans misplaced and even annihilated in their own homeland.

Misplaced is hosted by Collective 62, an independent art space devoted to creation outside of the traditional circuits of art. Located in Liberty City, Collective 62 also seeks to reverse the growing phenomenon of gentrification (another exponent of misplacement at the urban scale) through regeneration that derived from creation and community-based workshops.

By |2019-06-24T18:20:34-04:00December 7th, 2018|

Strand of the Ancestral [catalog]

ELEVEN VOICES was a group exhibition of South African and African Diaspora Artists presented by the Deering Estate in Miami curated by Kim Yantis of the Deering Estate and Rosie Gordon-Wallace of the Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator.

Artists include:
Nicholas Hlobo
Anton Kannemeyer
Anja Marais
Judith Mason
Claudette Schreuders
Rowan Smith etc.

The full catalog of the exhibition is available now online.:

VIEW CATALOG

From the Catalog:

A LONG, THIN STRAND OF THE ANCESTRAL

by Anja Marais

In 1994 as an art student, I stood in front of a painting and it left a crack in my young mind where the light started to seep in. The Pretoria Museum of Art was particularly quiet that day and I found myself alone in a room with a work by Judith Mason. A quiet escape from external harshness.

It was a lush painting. Each brush stroke spread like warm chocolate over the canvas building sediment that formed a topography reminiscent of Africa’s many valleys and plateaus. I got lost in this landscape of paint which shaped the body of a Wild Dog bitch. The Wild Dog was a mother with heavy teats, filled with milk. Her pups are not in the picture but her teats were suckled raw and red. She was standing alone in an alerted pose during the hour of twilight – the most dangerous time to leave your pups alone while hunting. She looked strong and vulnerable at the same time.

I have never met Judith Mason but I was one of many artists in South Africa that suckled inspiration from her protean body of work. In my mind, she was Africa’s Mother of Contemporary Art. She spoke up as a female, an artist, a white, a role model, against the misguidance in our society without ever being pedantic or condescending.

“The Wild Dog” painting is one of my favorite works by Mason. It is a metaphor for being an artist. It speaks of the strength and power of servitude. Artists provide nutrition to souls that are hungry and in need, even as the artists themselves are solitary figures that are ambulant in both the light and the shadow of their own psyche. Being always alert while understanding that their vocation comes with a responsibility to the earth and future generations.

Wild Dog, 1962, OIL ON BOARD, 91 X 123CM, COLLECTION: PRETORIA ART MUSEUM

In Eleven Voices I had the opportunity to exhibit alongside South African artists but it was profound for me to have Judith Mason in the exhibition. Her work and her history have become a cyclical thread in my own journey as an artist. She taught me to have a voice as a young art student and to have our voices brought together became a poetic confirmation of my art practice.

In the exhibition, my work “Unforeseen Snow” is a video installation that speaks of utopian pockets amidst the charged politics of South Africa. How love can exist untainted in the darkest of hours. The video is from 8mm film footage of my Mother and Father in love and wooing in the early sixties.  The installation also includes found objects like suitcases, bones, and books that refer to history. Ancestral history of genes, ideas, travels, knowledge, and wisdom. If tomorrow is ambiguous but we are sure of our past, can we carry that with us to make our future clear?  Or is it better to forget our past indiscretions?

I further speak about ancestry and their footsteps in the series “Sole Journey”. In this series of six, the bottom of the inner sole of used shoes is pulled out and displayed. It reveals the hidden pressure, weight, imprints, and stains of the wearer during their journey. What would I have done in my Mother’s and Father’s shoes? An easy question to ask oneself out of context but hard to maneuver in the enclosure of relevant time.

One of my motivations as an artist is aiming to take responsibility for my own history to be the generation that can follow in the shoes of progenitors like Judith Mason and to continue questioning the cycles of cultural inheritance and leave sustenance for artists and generations to come.

Unforeseen Snow, 2016, Video installation and found objects, 51in x 26in x 30in

Unforeseen Snow, 2016, Video installation and found objects, 51in x 26in x 30in

 

By |2018-04-05T10:59:37-04:00January 19th, 2018|

The difference between things born and things made.

The difference between things born and things made:

You see art that is made with deliberate effort and then you see art that is an effortless production of daily living.

You see art materials that are still virgin from a shipping container from China and then you see art materials that have ripened and eroded slowly in the hands of the artist.

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By |2017-07-12T13:01:37-04:00October 16th, 2015|

A Package in the mail

Today a brown paper wrapped package showed up with a manuscript inside. A message from a woman who translated and wrote down stories of other women.  As I peel off the paper I imagine the trapped voices inside ready to vapor fill my room. The first paragraph starts….”These stories are maps for the interior journey. The journey that reveals that which is most feared, the journey that demands always going forward, many times alone to recover lost pieces of soul as the resources of the inner feminine are found and claimed. ~ Irene Sullivan”….and I am gone, drifting through these pages. Ready to listen to these tales.

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By |2017-05-02T12:52:20-04:00October 13th, 2015|

I am just making.

The following story was recorded in a Japanese teaching:

Once there were three people who took a walk in the country. They happened to see a man standing on a hill. One of them said, “I guess he is standing on the hill to search for lost cattle“. “No“, the second said, “I think he is trying to find a friend who has wandered off somewhere“. Whereas the third said, “No, he is simply enjoying the summer breeze“. As there was no definite conclusion, they went up the hill and asked him. “Are you searching for strayed cattle?” “No“, he replied. “Are you looking for your friend?” “No,” again. “Are you enjoying the cool breeze?” “No“, yet again. “Then why are you standing on the hill?” “I am just standing“, was the answer.

Sometimes I am just making. To make in the moment without the trappings of doctrines.

anja-marais-art-studio

By |2017-07-12T13:01:37-04:00October 12th, 2015|
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