Paradise on Earth as a Motto. The Price of Happiness.
What Happens to the Body in Late Capitalism.
In this section, you are invited to go through the archival material of
two exhibitions that have specifically formed and informed my research
and body of work.
The two exhibitions took place five years apart, marking visually and conceptually the beginning and the end of the research. They appear to be aesthetically antagonist nonetheless they are utterly complementary. They both highlight different levels of understanding and apprehending Paradise on Earth’s effects and affects.
Following the chronological order 2017 then 2022, one step after another, is advised but not compulsory.
/ 2017
CLOTTED BODIES
IN PARADISE
Clotted Bodies in Paradise
Room Gallery, Johannesburg, 2017.
Clotted Bodies in Paradise addresses the condition of human connectivity in the early XXIst Century,
re-repressenting, and re-restaging both body and time. The research focusses on globalized aesthetics and questions around the idea of a mono-aesthetic in relation to the manufactured consent that is embedded in visual cultures. It is attempting to understand what is the devenir of the human body in late Capitalism.
A body constricted into fractured and flexible temporality. A body grabbing the illusion of tangibility.
A body enhanced by emotional prosthesis. A body becoming the drone of its own materiality.
/ 2022
IN THE WAKE
OF FLOUTED BODIES
In The Wake of Flouted Bodies
Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, 2022.
The historical concept of ‘Paradise on earth’ personified an ideal future, a specific moment. Today, the mono-aesthetic of Paradise lurks all around us,
endlessly promising happiness.The idea of Paradise has been sliced and chopped, utilised, repeated, designed and curated to form part of everything one could desire. In the obsession for continuous representation, all bodies have been "paradised". Paradise itself has been "paradised" by itself.
The act that primes and defines the price of happiness, and populates our bodies and minds with inexhaustible "paradised" icons, is repetition. As a result, all kinds
of bodies, ideas and potentialities are constricted, amputated and systematically discarded.
In the Wake of Flouted Bodies forms part of research to find alternative spaces that are drifting away from pre-owned / ready-made reality. The body of work
presented tends to reveal the violence and beauty embedded in the use of repetition while intending to highlight – existing but often blotted out – spaces that
could potentially impart nuances and time. These are some of the essential elements that form personal and cultural identity.
/ 2017
CLOTTED BODIES IN PARADISE
Room Gallery, Johannesburg, ZA.
Multimedia exhibition presenting a body of 08 works in dialog with each other.
Double Click to watch fullscreen
Exhibition View
/ 01
ON THE VIRGIN ISLAND OF DESERTED KNOWLEDGE / PARADOX MAKES ME HIGH
CMYK Screen Prints, 70x100cm, 2017.
Installation View
On the Virgin Island of Deserted Knowledge, 2017
Paradox Makes Me High, 2017
/ 02
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PARROT LEAVES
Poem, 2017.
/ 03
I THOUGHT I WAS IN PARADISE
Big Circus & the Mono-hegemonic-aesthetic of Paradise on Earth that reigns over instant digital and virtual entertainment, 2017.
Video, 02'00, 2017.
I Thought I was in Paradise, Video, 02'00, 2017
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/ 04
ANTHROPIC UNITS OF LENGHT AND TIME
Mixed media video installation, 2"52, 2017.
Life size cast arm, video projection, plastic bamboo leaves.
Installation View
Anthropic Units of Length and Time, Video Installation, 02'52, 2017
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/ 05
MECHANIC TANGIBLE MOVES
3 sculptural objects, 2017.
Automats composed of weights, perspex, mechanism, feathers.
Automats Details of Mechanism
Installation View
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/ 06
YOU HAVE BEEN SOMATICALLY TRANSFERRED SUCCESSFULLY
Medical plaster, real human hair on fake blue sky
/ 07
I WISH YOU WERE HERE
17 digital paintings printed on pavement bricks, 2017.
Installation View
/ 08
THE OPERATOR OPERATING ON MY BEHALF
Video, 07"40, 2017.
Installation View
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/ 2022
IN THE WAKE OF FLOUTED BODIES
WITS Art Museum Johannesburg, ZA.
Multimedia exhibition presenting a body of 06 works in dialog with each other.
Sketches - Pre-exhibition.
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/ 01
PARADISED CORNER, WAITING FOR ISM
Multimedia Sound Installation, One device thinking outloud for 03"40 on a loop, 5 chairs, 5 framed photographs, 1 clock reading 10 past10 (the happy time), 1 framed drawing of a corner ornemental plant, 2022.
Installation View
Installation Sound
/ 02
PLOY & DEPLOY
On site installation, 1000 Meters of Black Yarn deployed through the gallery space, 2 Polaroid Photographs, 2022.
Installation View
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/ 03
RGB POTENTIALITY
Handwritten tetraptyc, 594x841mm, 2022.
Installation View
/ 04
FORTY THOUSAND AND ONE WORDS TALES
Polyptich of 5 Screen Prints forming a printed version of the Thesis, 72x102cm, 2022.
Installation View
The QR code links to the core text of the 2017 Clotted Bodies in Paradise exhibition, scan it to access the text in PDF from your mobile
/ 05
BODYING FORTH
40 000 Stitches plus, arranged in 1000 rows composed of forty stitches each mimicking the Thesis, Black Yarn, 20x620cm, 2022.
Installation View
/ 06
IT ABOUT US
Video and screen work, 14"58, 2017-2022.
Installation View
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A FABLE FROM A TRUE TRAGEDY How are beginnings When do they start How do they start Where do they start Framed reality playing with ubiquitous time I watched it over and over again Endless repetition of my own representation Overwhelmed I don’t know what hurt first My Body My Mind Here again and again Myself is missing I still try to remember (Lost Paradise) I have asked around Around a cup of tea We were thinking Remembering Wondering Quietly Undoubtedly But doubtfully we agreed It might have started this way