Dissecting the architecture of daily life
BIRDHAVEN - Two artists will pick apart the 'accepted architecture of daily life' in a joint exhibition at In Toto Gallery.
De-Con-Structure will feature works by Leanne Shakenovsky and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum.
“Both [artists] question the ways in which we see the world, [and engage] in a vocabulary that encourages more questions than answers,” said the gallery’s Megan Kidd.
Shakenovsky’s work challenges notions of the financial values and worth ascribed to artworks, and the constructed concept of the ‘perfect family’.
“After working at Strauss & Co. auction house, Shakenovsky began to interrogate the prices realised by South African ‘masters’ and her growing bewilderment around artistic value versus monetary value,” said Kidd.
“In contrast to real gold, Shakenovsky uses cheap, shiny glitter to subvert notions of wealth and well-heeled social status.”
The artist used works by JH Pierneef, a “high achiever in the art market”, as a platform on which to apply the glitter; a commentary on the idea of constructed realities and society’s misconceptions of elitism.
“Searching for ‘perfect family’ on Google, Shakenovsky found perfectly-arranged images of families. She paired each image with answers from young boys who were asked what their idea of the perfect family is,” she said.
Sunstrum, however, turned to the spheres of mythology, literature, science and art to question the ways in which people imagine themselves in the world.
“Sunstrum’s body of work reveals her continuing fascination with vanguard and speculative theories in astro-physics, geology and geography,” said Kidd.
Kidd added that the works referred to mythological interpretations of the underworld, the Hollow Earth theory, and the Electric Universe theory.
“Many of the narrative clues hidden in the work come from Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha von Dechand’s essay on myth and the frame of time, titled Hamlet’s Mill,” she said.
The drawings reflect Sunstrum’s observation that mythology and science attempt to construct and deconstruct the same mysteries – the nature, history, meaning and future of things.
The artist defined her interest in finding parallels between science and myth as a “radical political practice of imagining and occupying the mythologies of the future”.
De-Con-Structure will run from 8 May until 9 June at In Toto Gallery, 6 Birdhaven Centre, 66 St Andrew Street, Birdhaven.
Details: 011 447 6543; www.intotogallery.co.za
