kzn reviews

There is a lot going on at the exhibition; perhaps too much to really reflect on anything critically. The paintings are typical of Verster’s work in their highly decorative and patterned motifs. Verster states: 'I prefer the dangers and thrills of kitsch to the blandness of good taste'. And indeed the patterning references everything and nothing at once, the focus being on ornamentation over specificity. The iconography on the bodies becomes generic, possibly in reference to the notion of a ‘global culture’ over a specific culture. But, if so, what is this global culture? The paintings seem to be unsure of that answer, tentatively trying out a few variations rather than settling on one specific identity.

Likewise, the 120 sculptures for ‘Signposts’ seem to become generic. Each one of the readymades stands on a brightly painted base, featuring plastic toys, crystals, and other ‘jumble’. Verster states that ‘a piece of clutter on the mantle piece becomes something special when it is placed on a base… tiny stages on which these bits and pieces can act out their new lives and become noticed and, maybe, even, important’. However, the sheer number of sculptures seems to indicate the opposite: that they are mass-produced, being too many to really reflect on the interest and meaning behind each one. In the visitor’s book, one person wrote of the exhibition, ‘same old same old’, and it does seem that, without any genuine critical engagement with the themes, they become flaccid, if not dull.

On the upper mezzanine, Paul Painting’s etchings were more engaging. The small-scale, neat collection of images appeared to be from Ma Baker’s personal scrapbook. Infamous Reggie Kray, a pair of buff wrestlers, a group of eerie Vaudevillians and a couple scantily clad in '70s swimwear sit side by side. The images are dark and spine-chilling. Painting leaves it up to the audience to make connections between the characters. Is that Reggie’s Mom and Pop? Did Reggie have a French bulldog called Barthez? A recurring Godzilla character pops its head up at odd places, perhaps a manifestation of the ‘monster’ within. The images are darkly humorous. At once a satire and a set of eerie tragicomic possible narratives.

And damn, I can’t seem to get Reggie’s mug shot out of my mind.