Well at least that’s here in SA. I went to an interesting exhibition the other day: Unknown – Installations by Jan van der Merwe.
Remember when rust was something of a scourge? When seen it was immediately overpainted by thick layers of shiny enamel paint. I suppose it still is, I mean if you saw it on your gorgeous car’s bodywork, even on your bike for that matter – it signifies disintegration, it’s like a disease, once a little bit has taken hold, it spreads and before you know it it’s devoured your car. It thrives on metal, it’s chromes worst nightmare. If you were chrome and you saw rust coming your way, you would run a mile and that’s a fact.
It’s interesting, the way rust disfigures metal, in a way it’s almost alive, it breathes – without oxygen you can’t get rust. The whole process is very much like us, we also oxidise, hence the manic preoccupation with anti-oxidants, especially for our skins. Rust is a stark and uncomfortable reminder about time and what it does to us, how it disfigures us, how over time we weaken, thus becoming more susceptible to diseases. We realise just how vulnerable and fragile we really are. However much we rally and fight against time and the final ending, in reality we’re helpless.
Jan van der Merwe is a South African artist – obviously with a name like that. He builds installations out of junk, anything that’s been discarded. He uses images, like videos which he plays through screens imbedded in these installations. The most striking material he uses are tins, rusted old tins, the type we buy at the grocery store. He flattens them and then forges them together to make objects we know, clothes, televisions, luggage and with these objects he creates a picture for us. And with the ‘picture’ before us we think thoughts different for our usual run of the mill thoughts which run like a continual, endless stream through our heads, never allowing us the chance to deepen our emotions. I think this endless commentary running through our brain is why we’re so shallow these days, why Hallo magazine is the best seller it is, why we’ve got this preoccupation with silly little stars. That’s what art does for us, it makes us stop and experience something in a slightly different way. It’s an emotional response to something visual instead of our usual adrenalin reaction.
This installation below is called Koeelwas, which is Afrikaans for Bullet wax. The installation comprises of a black and white TV monitor, video machine, a stand, a bullet proof jacket made of plastic, two small plastic cases, an illuminated plastic video cassette case, all filled with wax bullets.
Watching television is a universal experience, though which we share a second hand version of war and violence in the safe place of our living rooms, without the bullets leaving the screen and entering our real space.
The screen acts like a bulletproof vest preventing the bullets from causing real physical damage while we can share in the events. Like the wax bullets, that can melt and be transformed, these shared ‘experiences’ on screen hit on a psychological level and leave us scarred.
There are analogies to the wax bullets, looking like crayons, how children are exposed to violence, the white binding around the childrensÂ’ clothes suggests white chalk outlines the police use to mark out dead bodies.
The video monitor relays images of a hand holding a gun, firing shots repeatedly.
For me, especially with the 5th anniversary of 9/11 in a few days, just thinking back how we, here thousands of miles away, experienced the whole disaster through the television. WeÂ’re so used to experiencing violence and war through this box that it was almost not real, and in a way thatÂ’s right, it wasnÂ’t my reality.
Okay hereÂ’s a terrible admission, I shouldnÂ’t even say it. Remember the plane on 9/11 that was brought down by the passengers? Well I was really pissed off with them, they totally spoilt my fun. I wanted to see a plane smash into the White House.
That’s the strange part of our lives now, we ‘experience’ famine, earthquakes, tsumanis, the most horrific scenarios and at the same time we lose any emotional connection to those things. I remember when they first showed the starving Ethiopians, how shocking they were, now showing images of starving kids has become nothing more than hunger porn. So television is in a way is like porn, we need stronger and stronger visuals to get our adrenalin high. We’re so scarred by violence that not much touches us any longer.
When we feel shocked at least we feel, I think many of us live lives in a pretty numb way – going through the motions, but not fully taking part. Most probably it’s a consequence of frenetic city life.
Van der MerweÂ’s workÂ’s interesting, itÂ’s very much about looking back into the past, itÂ’s about preparation and anticipation: a wedding dress laid out on a bed awaiting the big day, a laid out uniform of a soldier awaiting a war, luggage on a carousel awaiting collection. All these activities point to uniting people in some way: marriage, war, travel. How we all have expectations which, if they donÂ’t happen leave us feeling redundant and wasted and if these undertakings do occur, we have to perform adequately, within a marriage, war, whatever. Often our fantasies are shattered and we feel disillusioned with ourselves; our flaws are exposed, often in public and usually by others.
Kainomania is an obsession with novelties, little trinkets; things weÂ’d buy on a holiday to take home to remind us of our good times. As the years pass, these trinkets on the mantelpiece begin to look sad and desperate, a futile effort to reclaim youth and the good times. It's kind of desperate, the way we keep our wedding pictures in an album, take the baby videos, take endless videos of our holidays.
Maybe itÂ’s a way of canning our experiences, reminding, or proving to ourselves weÂ’re alive during those dead days when we're just going through the motions.
