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Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

Narrative Means, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, 2018
 

Narrative Means

Goodman Gallery Johannesburg

June 2 – July 14, 2018

 

The life of an artwork is a curious thing. It begins with an experience or idea translated into a tangible expression by an artist. Traditionally, this has taken the form of painting, photography or sculpture, but in some instances, the process involves the artist rethinking the boundaries of these mediums as a way to explore their subject matter. The result can be a heightened encounter between the object produced, the hand that made it, and the viewer. Through this exchange, a story unfolds and, with it, new meanings are made.

Each artist featured on this exhibition uniquely grapples with this tension between perception and meaning. The constellation of artists originating from the African continent and its Diaspora also raises important questions about the literal narrative means sometimes expected from artists of African descent in today’s growing market for narrative-led art.

While Hank Willis Thomas and Mikhael Subotzky explore ‘whiteness’ as a construct within the photographic medium; Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh interrogate stereotypes around female sexuality by ‘othering’ the white female form and subverting traditional ‘women’s craft’; Misheck Masamvu pushes against pressure to take a literal figurative approach in responding to socio-political issues; conceptual artists Samson Kambalu and Kendell Geers play with form to address Western ideas around the currency of African forms.

Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh’s collaborative works on paper have welcomed rich interpretation. A recent review in the Mail & Guardian describes their depiction of women in seductive repose as ‘transmissible and viral, but when you start to look more closely … there’s no end to the possibilities they bring into play.’ Amer’s position: ‘If I painted a black woman or an Arab or Asian women, people would think that these groups of people are oppressed. In the west, the ‘other’ has no real importance. So, I have deliberately chosen to represent ‘white women’ as a universal stand in for ‘all women’ […] when I do this I subvert expectations and force the viewer to realise these women are not ‘others’.’

mounir fatmi’s Darkening Process also subverts expectations through its problematic depiction of ‘black face’. His short film reflects on the life of John Howard Griffin, a white civil rights activist who temporarily darkened his skin in response to heightened racial tensions during the American civil rights era. fatmi engages in an intertextual game with history, splicing footage from a sixties film inspired by Griffin’s life, with images linked to the black experience. In so doing he asks the viewer to re-examine their conceptions of blackness, whiteness and solidarity in a contemporary era which has given rise to personalities like Rachel Dolezal.

A charcoal drawing by William Kentridge conveys the bleak surrounds of a World War I war-torn landscape. The work, Untitled (Drawing from Wozzeck 35), was created for Kentridge’s production of Alban Berg’s opera, Wozzeck, which recently premiered at the Salzburg Festival. While Kentridge draws on documentary photographs of a WWI battlefield, when viewed by modern audiences, the work may also resonate with war scenes today, such as the brutal ISIS beheadings in Syria.

Broomberg and Chanarin’s The Day Nobody Died repurposes photographic film as a storytelling medium. The title alludes to a period in which the artists were embedded in Afghanistan and tasked with documenting the horrors of war. The image, an abstraction of shapes and colour, was created by unrolling and exposing a seven-metre section of film to the sun for 20 seconds. ‘The results,’ in the words of the artists, ‘deny the viewer the cathartic effect offered up by the conventional language of photographic responses to conflict and suffering.’

Misheck Masamvu’s Misheck we miss you love mother and dead twin sister takes the form of a stretcher used to transport sick people and dead bodies. Embedded in the sculpture is a letter Masamvu wrote to himself in the voice of his mother and twin sister, who died during childbirth – transforming the hand-carved stretcher into a bridge between life and death.

Samson Kambalu uses an invented form of site-specific, spontaneous filmmaking, dubbed ‘Nyau Cinema’, creating poetic vignettes that explore ‘how we might find meaning in what appears to be meaningless’ (Kambalu).

In Masking Tradition DXIII, Kendell Geers uses the image of the African mask to reinforce tropes around its reappropriated use in museological contexts. Through this gesture, Geers brings attention to the uncomfortable position these ethnographic ‘objects’ have come to occupy in our cultural dichotomy. In his other work on show, Mined, Geers casts a broken Heineken beer bottle in gold as a form of self-portraiture, imbued with subtextual reference to his white, South African identity.

For the lightbox Searching for Spain, Alfredo Jaar took a photograph from the grounds of an abandoned palace on the coast of Algeria. The ruins serve as a symbol of the economic and social disarray in which the country was left after decades of colonial rule. Looking through the hollow shell of the building, Jaar pointed his camera in the direction of Spain and the Mediterranean Sea, which tens of thousands of migrants attempt to cross each year in order to reach Europe. It is an image full of hope and despair.

 

Artists:

Alfredo Jaar | Broomberg and Chanarin | David Goldblatt | Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh | Kendell Geers | Kiluanji Kia Henda | Mikhael Subotzky | Misheck Masamvu | mounir fatmi | Samson Kambalu | William Kentridge | Hank Willis Thomas

 

Johannesburg, June 2018

 
Solo shows (selection)
 
2023
L'appartement 22 2023Piero Atchugarry Gallery 2023
Baró Galeria 2023
2022
Wilde Gallery 2022Ceysson & Bénétière 2022
Musée La Kasbah 2022Es Baluard Museu 2022
2021
Conrads Gallery 2021Officine dell'Immagine 2021
ADN 2021
2019
Skanstull Metro Station 2019Analix Forever 2019
Ceysson & Bénétière 2019Wilde Gallery 2019
2018
CDAN 2018Göteborgs Konsthall 2018
2017
Art Front Gallery 2017Officine dell'Immagine 2017
Galerie De Multiples 2017Analix Forever Gallery 2017
Jane Lombard Gallery 2017Galerie Delacroix 2017
Goodman Gallery 2017Lawrie Shabibi 2017
Analix Forever Gallery 2017Maisons des Arts du Grütli 2017
2016
ADN Platform 2016Keitelman Gallery 2016
Labanque 2016MMP+ 2016
2015
MAMCO 2015MIAMIBUS 2015
Analix Forever 2015
2014
CCC Tours 2014ADN Galeria 2014
ADN Platform 2014Analix Forever 2014
Yvon Lambert 2014
2013
Museum Kunst Palast 2013Keitelman Gallery 2013
Paradise Row 2013Institut Français de Casablanca 2013
Galerie Fatma Jellal 2013Analix Forever 2013
2012
Goodman Gallery 2012Shoshana Wayne Gallery 2012
Lombard-Fried Projects 2012
2011
Galerie Conrads 2011Fondazione Collegio San Carlo 2011
Galerie Hussenot 2011AKBank Sanat 2011
2010
Galerie Hussenot 2010
2009
Galerie Conrads 2009FRAC Alsace 2009
2008
Galerie Delacroix IFM 2008Creux de l'enfer 2008
2007
Galerie Ferdinand van Dieten 2007Musée national Pablo Picasso 2007
Shoshana Wayne Gallery 2007La maison rouge 2007
Lombard Freid projects 2007
2006
Bank galerie 2006
2005
CAC d'Istres 2005
2004
Espace des arts Colomiers 2004 CAC Le Parvis 2004
2003
Migros museum 2003
 
Biennials, Triennials (selection)
 
2022
Setouchi Triennale 2022
2020
Altai Biennale 2020
2019
Setouchi Triennale 2019SCREEN IT - Stadstriennale Hasselt Genk 5 2019
2018
13eme Biennale de Dakar 20187th Echigo Tsumari Art Triennale 2018
1er Biennale de Rabat 2018
2017
57th Venice Biennale 20177eme Biennale Architecture, Shenzhen 2017
11eme Biennale de Bamako 201715eme Biennale d'art contemporain Alios! 2017
2016
Biennale Poznan 2016Setouchi Triennale 2016
2015
10èmes Rencontres de Bamako 20155th Thessaloniki Biennale 2015
16th Media art Biennale Wro 20151st Trio Biennale, Rio de Janeiro 2015
2nd Bodrum Biennial 2015
2014
Fotofest Biennial 2014
2013
5th Auckland Triennial 2013White House Biennial 2013
2012
10th Dakar Biennial 2012Manif d'Art 6 2012
2011
3rd Thessaloniki Biennial 201111th Lyon Biennial 2011
54th Venice Biennial 2011
2010
XIIth Cairo Biennial 20101st Mediterranean Biennial of Haifa 2010
Port Izmir 2, international triennial of contemporary art 20109th Dakar Biennial 2010
Biennale Cuvée 2010
2009
Xth Lyon Biennial 2009Art Tel Aviv 2009
9èmes Rencontres de Bamako 2009
2008
1st Brussels Biennial 2008Pontevedra Biennial 2008
2007
24th Biennial Memorial of Nadezda Petrovic 20071st Luanda Triennial 2007
52th Venice Biennial 20078th Sharjah Biennial 2007
2004
Gwangju biennial 2004
2006
2nd Seville Biennial 20067th Dakar Biennial 2006
2000
4th Dakar Biennial 2000
1999
7th Biennal Art Media 1999
 
Group shows (selection)
 
2023
Pola Museum 2023museum in progress 2023
2022
UB Art Galleries 2022Fondation Boghossian 2022
Cobra Museum 2022
2021
Brooklyn Museum 2021Fondation Boghossian 2021
Museo Reina Sofía 2021Iselp 2021
Es Baluard 2021
2020
Fondation Boghossian 2020La Galerie 38 2020
Sala de la Provincia de la Diputacion 2020MOCAK 2020
Ceysson & Bénétière 2020Goodman Gallery 2020
Palais de Tokyo 2020American University in Cairo 2020
Musée des Confluences 2020
2019
Fondation Boghossian 2019MAMA 2019
Ceysson & Bénétière 2019Maison Populaire 2019
Bedford Gallery 2019 Evliyagil Museum 2019
Jane Lombard 2019James Cohan 2019
2018
Mathaf 2018MACAAL 2018
Fondation Boghossian 2018Sammlung Philara 2018
Nasher Museum of Art 2018Ellen Noël Art Museum 2018
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea 2018MOCAK 2018
Bozar Center for fine arts 2018Philharmonie de Paris 2018
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery 2018Goodman Gallery 2018
Institut Français de Saint Louis 2018Pensacola Museum of Art 2018
Von der Heydt-Kunsthalle 2018
2017
Gifu Museum 2017Huntsville Museum of Art 2017
Bandjoun Station 2017Institut des Cultures d’Islam 2017
Bellevue Arts Museum 2017Mudac 2017
Primo Marella Gallery 2017Goodman Gallery 2017
MACAAL 2017Museum De Wieger 2017
Conrads Gallery 2017Galerie Ceysson & Bénétière 2017
Keitelman Gallery 2017Musée du Pays de Hanau 2017
Château de Servières 2017CEAA 2017
Fondazione Fotografia Modena 2017H&R Block Artspace 2017
2016
Bedford Gallery 2016Beijing Today Art Museum 2016
Hôtel des Arts 2016Museum of Old and New Art 2016
Labanque 2016Les Photaumnales 2016
Al Maaden 2016Kunsthalle Faust 2016
Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg 2016Archives Nationales 2016
Bardo National Museum 2016Arles 2016
Musée d'Art Moderne de Troyes 2016Rotor 2016
Goodman Gallery 2016Musée Bartholdi 2016
Institut d’Art Contemporain 2016Santander Art Gallery 2016
Brandts & Viborg Kunsthal 2016
2015
Fondazione VIDEOINSIGHT 2015A Tale of a Tub 2015
Contemporary Istanbul 2015ADMAF 2015
Goodman Gallery 2015Keitelman Gallery 2015
Galeria Municipal do Porto 2015Fabra i Coats 2015
AMOCA 2015Monastère Royal de Brou 2015
CAC La Traverse 2015FRAC Franche-Comté 2015
ZKM 2015The National Library 2015
Station 2015La FabriC - Fondation Salomon 2015
Van Abbemuseum 2015The Brooklyn Museum 2015
MMP+ 2015Sharjah Museum 2015
Kamel Lazaar Foundation 2015Sextant & + 2015
2014
Gwangju Museum of Art 2014QAGOMA 2014
N.B.K. 2014CAyT Centro de Arte y Technologia 2014
Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery 2014Station 2014
Institut du Monde Arabe 2014Art Gallery of Western Australia 2014
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art 2014Palais de Tokyo 2014
2013
L'art dans les chapelles 2013MAD Museum 2013
Marseille - Provence 2013V&A Museum 2013
30 ans des FRAC 2013MAC Marseille 2013
MAXXI 2013
2012
Museu de Arte Moderna de Salvador de Bahia 2012Institut du Monde Arabe 2012
Edge of Arabia 2012Apexart 2012
B.P.S. 22 2012Dorsky Gallery 2012
International Center of Graphic Arts 2012
2011
Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art 2011Fondation Blachère 2011
Brooklyn Museum 2011Dublin Contemporary 2011
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts 2011Museum on the Seam 2011
Tri Postal Lille 2011Meeting Point 6 2011
2010
The New School 2010Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil 2010
Fondazione Fotografia Modena 2010Aargauer Kunsthaus 2010
KAdE 2010Kunst Museum Bochum 2010
Moscow museum of modern art 2010Art Gallery of Ontario 2010
2009
Fondation Gulbenkian 2009Centro de Arte de Santa Monica 2009
Beirut Art Center 2009Salina Art Center 2009
2008
Kunstverein Medienturm Ilz 2008Te Papa museum 2008
Studio Museum Harlem 2008Haus der Kunst 2008
Centre Pompidou 2008CAAM 2008
Centro de Arte de Santa Monica 2008
2007
Johannesburg Art Gallery 2007
2006
CAC Le Parvis 2006CAPC musée d'art contemporain 2006
Bank Galerie 2006Les Abattoirs 2006
Moderna museet 2006Mori art museum 2006
2005
Wereldmuseum 2005Centre Pompidou 2005
The Stenersen Museum 2005Saw gallery 2005
Konstmuseum 2005Hayward Gallery 2005
2004
Museum Kunst Palast 2004Tri Postal Lille 2004
2003
2nd international contemporary art meeting 2003
2002
Espacio C 2002
1999
O.N.A. Foundation 1999CAC Castres 1999
Musée des beaux-arts de Dôle 1999Musée des arts décoratifs 1999
 
 
Public Space Projects (selection)
 
2015
Metavilla Collateral Project to the 12th Havana Biennial
Prison Qara Meknès Art Paris
2014
Analix Forever
2013
Sculpture Beach Art Dubai
2012
Le Printemps de Septembre Narracje 4
2010
Ivry FIAC Tuileries
2004
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt