Like Nine Pin
by Nadja Daehnke
'Like Nine Pin' is Dorothee Kreutzfeldt's fifth solo exhibition and in these exhibitions the artist has firmly established herself as a painter of note. As in previous works, Kreutzfeldt's supreme painting talent can be seen in her handling of formal elements: her paintings sing with glorious colour combinations, and brushstroke. Composition and tonality all reflect delightful confidence and ability. And yet, having established and demonstrated her talent, Kreutzfeldt goes on to tease and prod by subverting the very painting practice of which she is such a master. Thus in areas colour turns muddy, paint is allowed to drip, chalk and pencil lines are scrawled across the paintings' surfaces. The viewer knows that Kreutzfeldt can Paint with a capital 'P', yet at times, she seems to be saying, she chooses not too.
This teasing, subverting and irreverent attitude might explain works such as Covergirl. This is a simple, almost simplistic painting in which colour is garish, brushstrokes seem sticky and composition is obvious. Seen out of context of the exhibition as a whole, I would not consider this to be a strong work. Kreutzfeldt, however, seems not to look at the paintings as individual pieces, but rather as collaboratively forming a sustained essay on a theme. Thus works such as Covergirl and Marlene, in the context of the exhibition as a whole, form a visual pause, a comma, which give the show a rhythm and sense of cohesion.
While Kreutzfeldt plays a game with the language of art, she also toys with written language. Her paintings refer to signwriting, yet only sections of the signs are revealed, making their content something of a guessing-game. Texts on some of the paintings, such as the 'Hey Mr President' of 'Do you want to meet the president?' seem incongruous, leaving the viewer puzzled and intrigued.
Games are a central motif in 'Like Nine Pin': Kreutzfeldt plays a game with the written and visual language in the arena of art, whilst thematically she draws on games acted out in the sports arena.
Sport is almost a religion to many in this country. It is an 'opium of the people', a massive money-spinner and a political tool: in short, it is of tremendous importance and consequence. And yet, sport is merely a sequence of arbitrary moves based on arbitrary rules. Consensus and tradition, rather than necessity or logic, invest sport with political and emotional meaning. Part of popular obsessesion with sport has to do with how player and spectator, for the length of the game, are allowed to step outside socially expected behaviour, and to act out aggression, erotics and immaturity.
Kreutzfeldt depicts sport and games and the arenas in which they are acted out. She reflects sports' contingent logic, and the near-religious fervour with which sport is greeted. Kreutzfeldt's paintings reflect the hectic obsessiveness, garish loudness and demanding presence of sports and sport-fans. Energetic brushstrokes and strident day-glo colour-combinations mean that each of the paintings demands attention, leading to a visual cacophony. In her artist's statement Kreutzfeldt writes that: 'each work demands to be first, the fastest and the best'.
On another level sport here is a pretext for a far wider and more philosophical project. The blind conviction of the sports-fan, the arbitrary rules, the tradition and the demanding seriousness of sport become, in Kreutzfeld's paintings, metaphors for wider society, social expectations and socially manufactured consensus. The paintings, in the end, are about the rules we make in life, and how we invest these rules with meaning, blinded to their underlying arbitrariness.
The clamour of trumpets, shouting phrases and discordant colours of Kreutzfeldt's paintings seem to suggest that the more serendipitous, the more obscure the rules, the more society creates a fanfare to afford a veneer of naturalness to these rules.
Kreutzfeldt titles the exhibition 'Like Nine Pin', referring to a forerunner of ten-pin bowling. Background text to the exhibition informs the viewer of the provenance of this sport, and its ancient origins in the 3rd and 4th century. Just as nine pin is now a forgotten game, Kreutzfeldt seems to suggest, so our current approach to the game of life can (and will) one day be supplanted with new rules; rules which, in turn, will be given a new fanfare of legitimacy and naturalness.
Opened: September 21
Closed: October 29
João Ferreira Gallery
80 Hout Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 423 5403
Fax: (021) 423 2136
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