Untying the Knot
by Suzie Copperthwaite
Antoinette Murdoch, Jennifer Lovemore-Reed, James Reed and Alex Trapani collaborate in '(Out of) Community of Property'. Four artists, two marital couples: the exhibition is figured as an exploration of the word marriage.
The title immediately evokes ideas of and relates to ownership and personal identity. The four artists exhibit in four rooms within the communal space, each artist's work appearing separately, an independent constituent, if you will. The title thus anticipates a critical confounding of ideas, the artist asserted as a single identity. To be honest, I was just a little disappointed by the spatial assertion of singularity. What I did find interesting, however, was the now apparent reference to counterpart.
Antoinette Murdoch offers works which - in a refreshing tongue-in-cheek and colloquial manner - address femininity, domesticity and passion. We have seen Murdoch' s strategies before: entrenched conceptions of identity are exposed and quietly eroded.
Trapani's large-scale digital prints and paintings seem to communicate the notion of union and integration more literally. He states: "Everything exists because of relationship, interaction and the sharing of space or property. Nothing would exist, work or be possible without the influence of something else." His signature '888', also read as 'infinity', here acts as a complement (of sorts) to the resonance of Murdoch's tape measure woven hearts.
An interest in process, material, transformation and transience is evident in James Reed's installation Ilumne Mythos. His marital counterpart, Jennifer Lovemore-Reed puts the (her) female body forward as a site of common property. Her work engages many iconic issues related to stereotyping, but feels quite dispersed.
It could be said that this exhibition speaks in broader terms of the dynamic relationships within contemporary art practice, marriage between or of ideas, of content to form and so on. Perhaps as a result of the sense of missed opportunity, of detachment (ironically non-committal), I found the show a little hesitant. The title is one of several factors that prompt the viewer to view, specifically, the works and artists in relation to each other, between and within relationships. Gone are the days of collaboration for its own sake.
Four artists; four rooms; two weddings; one question: Do You?
Opens: May 11
Closes: June 6
The Art Space, 3 Hetty Avenue, Fairland
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Suzie Copperthwaite is currently completing her MFA at the University of the Witwatersrand.
