'Monomania' at Goodman Gallery Cape
by Natasha Brain
The glut of group shows this August simply highlighted how difficult it is it is to find a theme that will bring artists together in an interesting and provocative way. Storm Janse van Rensburg, curator of the Goodman Gallery Cape, has managed to do just that. He selected artists under the theme 'Monomania', a term that originated in the 19th century, to describe obsessive compulsive behaviour. The term was recently revised by art historian Marion Van Zyulen, who argues that the repetitive, single-minded practices of the artist, contrary to being dangerous or pathological, can function constructively and have therapeutic effects.
Van Rensburg selected artists who are engaged with obsessive collecting, archiving, or detailed and repetitive technique in their oeuvres. In some works, the artists' extensive need to collect and archive appears to be a way of organising and controlling the world around them. For others, artistic practice is meditative, helping the artist to come to a deeper understanding of their subject matter through their repetitive, intense technique.
Siemon Allen's The Birds incorporates both archiving and a repetitive technique. It is the highlight of the show: its large, smooth, reflective surface drew my attention from the door. The piece is constructed from 16mm film, lending it a shimmering sheen and subtle variations in tone. The initial impression is that it is an abstract or minimalist artwork, but on closer inspection it appears that there is more depth (and meaning) to the apparently flat surface. The piece is made from hand-woven film of the Hitchcock movie The Birds. If one peers closely, it reveals small images of people, houses and cars. Even though the narrative is there, the images are too opaque to be read properly. As we step away, the small images become invisible and morph back into the abstract whole of the work. Contrary to Van Zyulen's theory, in The Birds we are unable to come to a narrative or deeper understanding despite the obsessive ordering and intensity of his technique. Allen has used the aesthetic and medium cleverly to set up tension between the abstract and the representational, between what is concealed or illuminated, tensions that are in the Hitchcock film.
Joanna Bloch's installations, just to the left of The Birds, are very similarly a product of obsessive collecting and assembling. Bloch has collected cheap plastic toys, the kind one finds in lucky packets or children's MacDonald's meals. The collection is neatly ordered. Moons and helicopters mark off an area as the sky, and stairways ascend to the heavens. A plastic shark dangles near the bottom of a ladder indicating ocean or depths. Bloch appears to have enjoyed ordering her toys into a make-believe universe.
She has used a grid format to order a cosmic collection of pompoms and pins in The Beautiful Adventure and her collection of silkworm cocoons and pins in Infinite Sky. The grid format is also echoed in The Birds which peeks out just behind it. A few artists in the exhibition make use of the grid, one of the most common and systematic ways of ordering forms. The rational ordering of the animal-like pompoms and silkworms here seems to allude to taxonomy, a system of classification and naming of all living things. Bloch's installations demonstrate that monomaniacal collecting and ordering can function constructively to 'drive out the anxiety of the void' and 'puts in its place something so orderly and meaningful that it can take on the aura of a religion' (Van Zuylen, 2004).
Arie Kuijers is perhaps the biggest monomaniac on the show. He has collected an astonishing amount of homosexual memorabilia and brought his entire collection into the gallery space. He has systematically ordered and archived his collection into albums, catalogues and filing cabinets. It appears that he collects for his own private indulgence. In The Great Afrikaner Erection, he has installed his collection of pornographic images inside a dart-board cabinet, and Shooter Spree, has made a game out of his collection. His cabinets and games are set up on a large carpet in a living room arrangement. The use of furniture brings to mind the commonly used term 'in the closet', and in his work there is a tension between the secretive and hidden and what is on display.
David Koloane's city panoramas and Ryan Arenson's sketches seems like a strange inclusion in this exhibition, given the prevalence of installation art in the show. The theme manages to link these works to the rest of the exhibition by drawing the viewer's focus to the repetitive, intense drawing technique in each artist's work. In Koloane's City Panorama and Take it Up the endless layers of scribbles work to convey the frantic, chaotic nature of the city. In Knight in Shining Armour and We are all saints, Ryan Arenson has similarly used an intricate and detailed drawing technique. One thinks about the calming and meditative effect this repetitive technique must have on the artist. However, his processes don't seem to strengthen the meaning of his artwork as we see in Koloane's work and on the others on the show.
'Monomania' is an evocative theme which enhances the viewer's experience of the exhibition, providing ways of interpreting and connecting the artworks on the show. Janse van Rensburg also had the freedom to select artists who fitted with his theme and this is perhaps where 'Monomania' starts gaining on other group shows around this month. Too often galleries stick to their stable artists and try to force them all into a theme, which detracts from the focus of the show. The freedom has also allowed for an unusual collection of artists working in a diverse range of media. This makes 'Monomania' one of the freshest and most exciting group shows this August.
Opens: August 7
Closes: September 6
Goodman Gallery Cape
3rd Floor Fairweather House, 176 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock
Tel: (021) 462 7573
Fax: (021) 462 7579
Email: info@goodmangallerycape.com
Hours: Tue - Fri 9.30am - 5.30pm, Sat 10am - 4pm
References
Marina Van Zuylen. 2005. Monomania: The Flight from Everyday Life in Literature and Art. Cornell University Press.
