'A Novel in Parts
Reneé Holleman at Whatiftheworld / GalleryWhatiftheworld presents the first solo exhibition by Artist Renée Holleman titled A Novel In Parts. The exhibition takes as its point of departure the Woodstock environ, a place long on the brink of becoming something else. Suspended between a forgotten past and a promising future its current revival signals an important but not unproblematic shift within an area whose diversity marks it apart from any other in the city.
Through an inherently open construct and the lens of a mysterious event, the exhibition attempts to open up a space in which various story-lines oscillate between fact and fiction, drawing on the mythical nautical tale of the 'Flying Dutchman' as well as a legion of ships sunk off the Cape coastline. A series of sightings in the city streets at night are reported. Unverified, unlikely, they are connected to or re-iterated in a number of unreliable manifestations, none more probable than the other.
What is made visible and what is not, from Woodstock's unseen shoreline to the gallery's renovated premises, link to issues of representation that are explored in the exhibition on a narrative and conceptual level. Ideas of the staged and un-staged, and the space between production and presentation are key.
Inspired by the local neighbourhood, a certain Argentinian writer, and choose your own adventure stories, Holleman's new body of work employs the device of the novel to explore a collection of interweaving concerns that draw on history, locale, narratives of progress, abstract fable, visual conundrum and text. In so doing, she alludes to different spaces within and without the exhibition and gaps and dislocations in reading/viewing, while positioning the viewer as an interpretive agent in a diverse body of work that includes drawing, installation, sculpture and sound.
03 September - 08 October
