Disembodied Voices | Nalini Malani: Mother India | Art Gallery of New South Wales | Sydney

Text by Ella Mudie

When Nalini Malani, one of India's most prominent contemporary artists, was invited to create a large-scale new media installation for presentation in India Contemporary at the Venice Biennale in 2005, her response was the startling and enigmatic video play Mother India. Recently acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, this provocative visual and sonic response to the challenge of representing continuous cycles of gendered violence is currently screening in the gallery's Asian art wing. It represents a unique opportunity for audiences to encounter the work for the first time in Sydney across an impressive 15 metre long wall-to-wall installation.

The starting point for Malani's synchronised five screen video projection which combines archival footage with more poetic and painterly imagery is the essay Language and Body: Transactions in the. Construction of Pain by anthropologist Veena Das, known for her bold questioning of the nature of violence, social suffering and subjectivity. Malani shares with Das an ongoing concern for gender relations and in Mother India the pressing necessity to find a means of conveying the traumatic ways in which women's bodies become implicated as sites to be claimed and owned in struggles for nationhood, is thrown into sharp relief.

Two pivotal episodes historic episodes from 20th century India form the video play's reference points – the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and, decades later, the bloody Gujarat episode of 2002 which involved a horrific campaign of violent rape against Muslim women. In grappling with the considerable challenges of imaging endemic sexual violence, Malani instead elects to begin more obliquely with an interplay of voices. The piercing, shrill voice of an unnamed women cries out "what do you take me for? A something machine?" offset by the calm and authoritative declaration of a male Nehruvian voice who states that "the national honour is at stake." This highly charged verbal exchange sets in motion the tension in the work over boundaries - those of the nation, political ideals and the female body.

These disembodied voices are like ghosts resurrected from the archive and bring to mind Malani's previous suggestion that "the artist is a witness to a memory of loss." In Mother India, the visual witnessing begins with a montage of documentary style footage of a procession of billowing flags followed by images of women spinning yarn on wheels and film of masses of displaced people carrying their possessions through streets and fields. From relatively concrete beginnings, Malani soon shifts into a more disparate and abstract realm as the female body assumes a spectral quality. In one projection, an ethereal imprint of a woman in loose blue robes hovers over the ordered cartographic delineations of a map. In an another, a female face in close up appears as if dissolving into shadows while partially illuminated by patches of blood-like red light.

Concluding with a rapid fire procession of images of the ruins of destroyed homes in Gujarat, Malani emphasises how cycles of violence continue into the present. The nearby installation of two earlier single channel video works, Memory: record/erase (1996) and Stains (2000) reveal how far Malani has travelled on her journey to transcend the boundaries of the mediums of painting, drawing and video to prise open alternate ways of representing complex truths. With its new home in a major centre for Asian art in Australia, Malani's Mother India both intervenes and enters into conversation with the broad reconfigurations of identity and womanhood already represented in this diverse collection.

Nalini Malani: Mother India, 11/02/2012 - 20/05/2012, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

Aesthetica in Print

If you only read Aesthetica online, you're missing out. The February/March issue of Aesthetica is out now and offers a diverse range of features from an examination of the diversity and complexity of art produced during the tumultuous decade of the 1980s in Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, opening 11 February at MCA Chiacgo, a photographic presentation of the Irish Museum of Modern Art's latest opening, Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection. Plus, we recount the story of British design in relation to a comprehensive exhibition opening this spring at the V&A.

If you would like to buy this issue, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Better yet call +44 (0) 1904 629 137 or visit the website to subscribe to Aesthetica for a year and save 20% on the printed magazine.

Captions:
Nalini Malani (India 1946 -)
Mother India: Transactions in the Construction of Pain 2005
video play; five video projectors in sync, sound, 5 minutes
dimensions variable
Purchased with funds provided by the Art Gallery Society of New South Wales Contempo Group 2011

A Return to Making-Strange? | Opens Tomorrow | Interplanetary Revolution | Golden Thread Gallery | Belfast

Text by Angela Darby

Exhibition Statement:

The opening of Interplanetary Revolution may feature a cocktail bar, a chorus of ice cream vans, the introduction of another currency and a song by The Factotum Choir that they never quite cracked. Are we the warriors of the Revolution?! Are you? Drawing inspiration from the 1924 Russian propaganda animation of the same name, Interplanetary Revolution is a project that will include at least two new simultaneous group exhibitions and the installation/reworking of another. Looking at failing/ed ideologies; notions of otherworldliness and the uncanny; and revolutionary critique, Interplanetary Revolution will be an opportunity to collapse a few assumptions and undermine previous relationships.

It is planned that parts of the exhibition/s, the artists and/or artworks will change – other elements of the project remain as yet unfinished and may end up never being so. The project will be accompanied by curated or hosted screenings every Thursday evening and most likely a series of lunchtime talks.

The opening of the exhibition will feature contributions by artists and curators, including: Jofroi Amaral, Anonymous, Ursula Burke, Charles Burns, Captain Hate, Martin Carter, Ben Crothers, Colin Darke, Maurice Doherty, The Factotum Choir, Adham Faramawy, The Girls, Gerry Gleason, Laura Graham, Pierre Granoux, Sophie Hamacher, Michael Hanna, Allan Hughes, Brendan Jamison, Brian Kennedy, Rebecca Loyche, Phillip McCrilly, Susan MacWilliam, Kim McAleese, Laura McMorrow, Shiro Masuyama, Jonas Mekas, Ryan Moffett, Brendan O’Neill, Nicolas Provost, Ma Qiusha, Peter Richards, Reynold Reynolds, Erik Mark Sandberg, Gary Shaw, David Sparshott, Clemens Wilhelm. This is a Golden Thread Gallery TBC Project.

Angela Darby caught up with The Golden Thread's Director and curator, Peter Richards in the lead up to the launch of the exhibition on Thursday 16th February.

AD: You have been planning this exhibition for some time now, how has the project evolved?

PR: I suppose we have been working on the idea for this exhibition for nearly two years now. I think initially the exhibition had sought to weave together the work of international artists with artists in Northern Ireland in a broad looking how at failing/ed ideologies were being portrayed/represented in contemporary practice. I think since its inception the idea has developed to include a reflection on the construct of an exhibition and the nature/role of curation and artists as curators, curators as artists. And as a result some of the original thoughts about artist’s/artworks have changed.

AD: Several of the artists selected are established and have an ongoing relationship with the gallery, could you say what attracted you to the work of the emerging artist in the context of this exhibition?

PR: There are obviously benefits to working with artists whom you have a established relationship with, in terms of understanding/trusting each other – which is really important when asking them for permission to use and experiment with their work - as in the case of this exhibition. I wouldn't say that we were attracted to emerging artists per se, rather their specific works, and how through these works we could build a sense of the subject of the exhibition. As a gallery, we do go and see as much as we can, as often as we can and we do have a facility for artists to register an expression of interest of working with us, which we regularly review. We’re hoping that some of the artists we have worked with before will become artists that we work with again in the future. On a similar note we are still looking for artworks for the exhibition and will continue to do so throughout the exhibition.

AD: Contained within the publicity material there is a statement that indicates "at least two new simultaneous group exhibitions and the installation/reworking of another." Can you expand on this?

PR: Good question. Interplanetary Revolution is an exhibition – and in addition to inviting artists to participate in the exhibition; which in some cases means requesting the loan of specific works, in others talking to artists and inviting them to respond to the exhibition with new works (some site-specific, some interventions), I have also invited the artist/curator, Maurice Doherty, to re-create/re-work an exhibition that he curated in Berlin last summer (entitled Revolution) within the context of this exhibition. Having made that decision, I thought it would be interesting to then invite upcoming Belfast based curator, Ben Crothers, to put together his own Interplanetary exhibition also to be included in the show.

Whilst both of these exhibitions will exists as (fixed) exhibitions within or as part of the wider exhibition, the wider exhibition is planned to change throughout the duration of the show. Some works will be moved, others taken away, new works added, new artists approached and other interventions invited, so that return visitors to the exhibition will be greeted with something entirely different. Some of the planned changes are already known and understood – others are very much as yet to be decided.

AD: Does the open-ended construct of the project, in which artworks may change over the course of the exhibition, question the traditional role of the curator?

PR: I think the role of the curator has been debated, researched, scrutinised and questioned to death and back. I’m not sure what questions are left – I just hope that we collapse a few assumptions. I think maybe we’re going back to the "making-strange".

AD: As a contributing artist how will your own work evolve during the exhibition period?

PR: As the exhibition's curator I’m not comfortable about having my own work in the exhibition – even though it is as part of Maurice’s reworking of his exhibition - this is still to be confirmed. Similarly I have resisted peer pressure to join The Factotum Choir (aside from the fact that I don't sing). My work during the exhibition will be to find new work for the show and to keep the exhibition changing. With this in mind, i'm looking to do a few studio visits the end of this week and early next.

Interplanetary Revolution, 16/02/2012 - 24/03/2012, Golden Thread Gallery, 84-94 Great Patrick Street, Belfast, BT1 2LU. www.goldenthreadgallery.co.uk

Aesthetica in Print

If you only read Aesthetica online, you're missing out. The February/March issue of Aesthetica is out now and offers a diverse range of features from an examination of the diversity and complexity of art produced during the tumultuous decade of the 1980s in Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, opening 11 February at MCA Chiacgo, a photographic presentation of the Irish Museum of Modern Art's latest opening, Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection. Plus, we recount the story of British design in relation to a comprehensive exhibition opening this spring at the V&A.

If you would like to buy this issue, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Better yet call +44 (0) 1904 629 137 or visit the website to subscribe to Aesthetica for a year and save 20% on the printed magazine.

Captions:
Sophie Hamacher, Video still from The Fog (2009)
Clemens Wilhelm, Macht Nichts (2010)
Colin Darke Parodos GTG (2010)
Shiro Masuyama Parky Party (2006)
All images courtesy the artist

Observations of Modern Life | Ridley Howard: Slows | Leo Koenig Inc. | New York

Text by Dan Tarnowski

Slows is a new exhibition of paintings by the Brooklyn artist, Ridley Howard. Howard’s second show at Leo Koenig Inc. marks both a new direction in his artwork and a continued exploration of his typical style, which could be described as conceptual figurative work.

The first painting seen in the exhibition depicts a man in a patterned sweater of brown, white, and orange. The man’s face is realistically rendered with soft shading but the pattern of his garment is painted in flat shapes that conjure a Native American blanket. The 2-D style of the sweater recalls the geometry of the abstract and minimalist art contained in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Man With Sweater (2011), with its juxtaposition of soft flesh and angular shapes, sets the tone for the exhibition.

Blue Yellow (2011), a composition of yellow circles flanking a pink square over a blue background recalls the colour experiments of Josef Albers. It also shares a similar colour palette to the Pac-Man game for Atari. Considered alongside Black with Shapes (2011), a composition of green squares on black, it begins to seem like the artist has a serious interest in abstract painting. But the abstracts only encompass one of three artistic styles exhibited in Slows.

Progressing in detail, next comes Building (2011), a fairly realistic representation of the front of a factory, the kind of building common in Howard’s hometown of Brooklyn. The building is viewed from straight on and framed in the canvas so it makes a perfect rectangle; no slanting of windows or doors; all right angles. The flattened composition and factory aesthetic recalls Charles Sheeler’s modernist paintings of industrial architecture.

Progressing in detail once again, next are Ridley Howard’s paintings of people. And they stand in stark contrast to all the geometry. Meticulously rendered with full attention paid to anatomy, Howard’s figures are quite sensual. Nudes (2011) is the most erotic work in the exhibition, showing a couple embracing, a woman wrapping her legs around a man as he sits on a white downy bed. Despite the sexiness of the image, the viewer is not invited into the scene for long. Small details—the birthmarks on the man’s back or a perfect horizontal line across the back wall—serve to distract the viewer and remind them of the artist’s geometrical theme. The yellow color of the woman’s tights matches a neighbouring painting, a still life called Trattoria (2011). The still life features a yellow wall, a table, overturned wine glasses, and a small photo of a cat. Thus, the viewer is led out of the lovers’ scene and sent through the exhibition once again, looking at each painting a second time.

Holly, Rose Dress (2011) offers an interesting counterpoint to Man With Sweater (2011). In the portrait, a woman in a striped and flower-patterned dress features the same blend of three-dimensional form and flattened graphics as the man in the sweater, however the top half of the woman’s face is cut off so the majority of the canvas is filled with her dress. Thus, the pattern on her garment becomes a composition of its own, the flowers drifting towards the right while the stripes ripple to the left. The movement in the pattern on the dress hints at emotions that are not captured in the stoic face of the woman.

Although Howard bridges organic and architectural forms, their combination doesn’t seem jarring or disharmonious. The underlying geometry that appears throughout the paintings, even in the positioning of a nude’s birthmarks, gives the artwork an orderly effect. The clearest example of this appears in Tracks (2011), a mostly-monochrome painting in which a green racetrack runs horizontally beneath a bevy of puffy trees. Each tree is different and spontaneously placed, while the track is a sleek horizontal zip. Although the scene is banal, it gains a picturesque quality from the subtle sunset in the background and from the orderly nature of the composition.

But what does all this order mean? Is it the artist’s yearning to find meaning in places and relationships? Or is the artist detached from his subject matter, lining up his figures and shapes as an homage to painting?

Ridley Howard: Slows, 19/01/2012 - 25/02/2012, Leo Koenig Inc., 545 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011. www.leokoenig.com

Aesthetica in Print

If you only read Aesthetica online, you're missing out. The February/March issue of Aesthetica is out now and offers a diverse range of features from an examination of the diversity and complexity of art produced during the tumultuous decade of the 1980s in Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, opening 11 February at MCA Chiacgo, a photographic presentation of the Irish Museum of Modern Art's latest opening, Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection. Plus, we recount the story of British design in relation to a comprehensive exhibition opening this spring at the V&A.

If you would like to buy this issue, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Better yet call +44 (0) 1904 629 137 or visit the website to subscribe to Aesthetica for a year and save 20% on the printed magazine.

Caption:
Images courtesy of Leo Koenig Inc., New York