Julia Rosa Clark at Liste Art Fair, Basel
by Mandy Lee Jandrell
What struck me about 'A Million, Trillion, Gazillion', the installation of Julia Rosa Clark's work on the João Ferreira stand at the Liste Art Fair in Basel, was that there is a kind of universalism about it. It communicates beyond Long Street, beyond Cape Town, beyond an experience particularly or necessarily South African.
I can see, (having also gone to school in South Africa during apartheid where 'history began in 1652 with the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck' etc), how a South African childhood and educational experience may have influenced the work. But, while drawing heavily on that experience, Clark has created work that seems to deal with wider (even political) concerns. She takes a personal experience - the journey of life from the safety of childhood ignorance to the confusion and complexity that face her today - and uses this to ask questions and challenge our perceptions.
Clark's (often playfully rebellious) test to educational authority, her cutting-and-pasting, context shifting, symbol-hopping and explosions of information start asking: if there's no one authority, then is there a plurality of authority? If there's all that information out there what do we do with it? Do we justify our cause by picking and choosing relevant bits of information from the smorgasbord that's on offer? Clark's work questions a world where even the American Neo-Con movement, playing dirty tricks with the 'First Amendment', is using the pluralist argument in relation to the debate surrounding teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public schools.
On a formal level, Clark's almost obsessive art practice is engaging. The work seems to appeal to an audience eager to see the resurgence of the authentic artwork, the 'hand- made', something 'real', something touched by the artist. This trend is also evident in the resurgent popularity of painting, particularly the somewhat raw painting to be found in galleries in London's East end or in Saatchi's behemoth six-part 'Triumph of Painting' exhibition series. Within the context of Art Basel, where slick, polished and gigantic 'Big Name Brand' artworks are the order of the day, there's something refreshing about work made with a pair of scissors, some Bostik, some pins and a bucket-load of labour and creative vision.
But it's in her recontextualisation of images that Clark's work goes beyond issues of aesthetics and formality. Her work challenges our relationship to the meaning of images that constantly surround us. The throwaway images - in schoolbooks, on billboards, on TV, on the internet - that make up our picture of the world, have little meaning on their own. But, when engaged with en masse and with the criticality that Clark brings to the process, their authority is challenged. It's this kind of critical engagement that takes Clark's work beyond mere formal or aesthetic interest. She not only deconstructs meaning, but, in her re-assemblages, offers new alternatives.
João Ferreira Gallery, Liste Art Fair, Basel
Closed: June19, 2005
Mandy Lee Jandrell is a South African photographer living in London. Her work was recently shown on the Royal Academy Summer Show.
