Art_Africa_2016_03_

ARTAFRICA

Shoshanna Weinberger executes her wit with more minimalism. The emptiness of the

page imbues the artist’s gesture with gravitas – her’s is an absorbing simplicity. Banana

Dancer (2014) presents the viewer with a triple-breasted figure; its adipose heft seems to

reference the Venus of Willendorf – except she’s in high heels, sporting a baroque hairstyle.

However, what truly displays the artist’s prowess is the dot positioned near the figure’s

knee. Deliberate or accidental, the thumb-sized splatter of paint is arresting. Its sheer

indecipherability makes it portentous. Weinberger’s work suggests a reflexive sexuality,

signaling an entry-point into the politics of excess and what it means to occupy flesh.

Chemu Ng’ok shifts the conversation from body-politics to emotion. In Release (2015),

which stands at 200 x 118cm, ambiguous figures occupy a seascape; supernumerary limbs

are entangled with seaweed, the only visible face obscured by sunglasses and headgear.

Despite the science-fiction overtones, the work imparts a sense of armoured infinitude.

The image masters the elements while immersed in them. Her territory is a prompt to

summon the courage for vulnerability.

Barbara Wildenboer, in the only video piece of the show, transposes pulsing, ethereal

images of human and animal x-rays alongside books. The celestial undertones suggest

universality, a shared sacral sympathy between humanity and beasts.

Materiality asserts itself in Frances Goodman’s work, particularly Lilith (2015). The

sculpture transforms artificial fingernails into a writhing, mitochondrial organism that

simultaneously possesses exoskeletal rigidity. The artist often deals with themes around

the pressures of beauty, excess and transience but the complexity of this work evades

generalisations on the ‘plight of women.’ Named instead of titled, Lilith conjures an

individual, not an archetype. It suggests ‘self ’ not ‘role’ or an identity shaped by its

relationships. The work is a symbol of a complex self-possession and subsequently, it

condenses the significance of the show.

LUSH / STAFF WRITER: SCC 2/3

REVIEWS

LEFT TO RIGHT: Shoshanna Weinberger, Banana Dancer, 2014. Gouache and Ink on Paper, 76 x 56.5 cm;

Installation view of ‘Lush’, 2015 - 2016. All images courtesy of SMAC Gallery.