Thomas Mulcaire

The Goodman Gallery One & Only is proud to present a selection of Thomas Mulcaire’s latest works informed by an expedition and project the artist worked on in the Antarctic earlier this year. Mulcaire was part of the execution and creation of a wind and solar powered station in the Antarctic for scientists and artists alike, and the works exhibited at the One & Only gallery are representative of the final products of a range of considerably layered and multifaceted works.

What first meets the eye is a plane punctuated by seven Ultrachrome canvasses whose surface is saturated with colour at different levels of intensity. Vertical panels and columns of a range of hues and tones rendered with slick, evenly coated Ultrachrome ink at colour levels that positively reverberate off the plane of the canvas, are the main body of work that is shown. The works are large scale, and have a charming story to tell: Photographs of the landscape and imagery of the Antarctic as the aforementioned project’s location were taken, but a malfunctioned laptop erroneously rendered the images in a pixilated, simplistic and stylistically interesting format. The interpretation of light, whether by nature or technology, is something of fascination to Mulcaire, and his fixation with light, translation of light through any form of filter or transformative device or interpretation process whereby meaning or image might change, is something dire to Mulcaire’s work.

A series of photographs (Estado, Miracao, Santana) adjacent to the canvases play interlocutor as the inverted, correctly rendered photographs the Ultrachrome’s intended. The photographs themselves do not represent the Antarctic, but Sao Paolo during a time when illuminated billboard advertising was banned from the city in an attempt to clean up. The transition from saturated colour to a subdued, dim haze at night and a cityscape reminiscent of a battlefield during the day, “filled with monuments to a struggle for public space”, a similar fixation on the presence and not-presence of light and colour is clear. Mulcaire’s inclusive interpretation of light is seemingly universal in his depiction of luminosity (or a lack thereof) and it’s interaction with humanity in different spaces and under diverse conditions.

Miranda, exhibited as a photograph of the large scale sculpture Big Bang imparts the concept of presence and non-presence within the shape of a star: A universal concept, the star, is at once present as absent. The frame-like sculpture is made of recycled rubble and concrete that came from broken down houses, transformed into sand and aggregate, and with the addition of water, the cycle ran again. Mulcaire says “We are from dust and we go to dust”. The work itself is representative of this process, it is an idea altered into form and back again. The dynamism of the work goes further; drawing attention to our fossil, concrete mass and landfills that are irreversibly entrenched into our earth, making up the largest man made mass on our planet.

An exciting, evocative and pertinent collection of work, Mulcaire’s show will be up until…..

Due to the interest and response from the public to his recent exhibition at Goodman Gallery Cape, Goodman Gallery One&Only is pleased to present selected works of Thomas Mulcaire’s opening 27th August. Mulcaire’s recent exhibition at Goodman Gallery Cape was his first solo exhibition in Cape Town since his exhibition at the South African National Gallery in 2003. Mulcaire engages and plays with contemporary curator and artist relationships, and establishes relationships between objects, images, curatorial projects and institutional works that deal with the idea of the commons, as well as referencing historical icons and forms in various states of translation.

In his work, Miranda, Mulcaire uses the universal symbol of the star as Big Bang. Mulcaire says, ‘Big Bang (2008) is basically a given form. It is a star….this particular Big Bang is also not a star – it is a concrete frame.’ The concrete framing the space shaped as a star is made up of recycled rubble form destroyed houses and buildings that have been reduced to sand, mixed with water and Portland cement ‘creating a chemical process, a fusion. Big Bang is a cookie-cut out of this fusion’. Concrete is the largest man made mass in the world (a cubic meter of concrete for every person). Mulcaire says, “the framing of concrete is definitely within that idea of production, and making a concrete star is also a bit of a joke on framing: where does the frame begin and end?’
Using a range of technologies to replicate the picture plane, Mulcaire plays with the ways in which digital and electronic technologies can be used as a painting surface. He explains that it is essentially about light washing over us and light moving away from us. Mulcaire is interested in exploring transmission as a genre and how it is possible to think of oneself as a link in a network.

Mulcaire’s work has been exhibited widely, including the XXIV Sao Paulo Bienal in 1998, the Biennale of Sydney in 2004, Art Unlimited at Art Basel in 2008 and the 2nd Bienal del Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina in 2009. Currently he is exhibiting at Gefrorene Zeit at Stadtgalerie Kiel from 12 June – 30 August 2009. Forthcoming exhibitions include and Distant Proximity at the Kunstmuseum Bonn from 10 September – 15 November 2009.

During the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa,Thomas Mulcaire and Ricardo de Oliveira created Afrika – a film inspired by Timothy Leary’s proclamation that humankind was evolving towards a purely aesthetic state, and that surfing is the embodiment of this process. Following a group of Brazilian surfers on a road trip around Southern Africa, the film explores this notion through their dynamic encounters with a new and multifaceted part of the world.

Along the way they visit memorial sites to Samora Machel and Hector Pieterson, witnessing a new generation picking up ideals from the past and reinvigorating the struggle. They visit surfing Mecca – Jeffrey’s Bay, joining in on a protest against a nuclear power station that threatens to destroy what are universally known as the world’s most perfect waves. They watch Brazil get knocked out of the World Cup in Port Elizabeth and then continue to do what they came for – surf.

What is ultimately a documentary of this spirited journey; the film also references the genre of 1970s surf movies. It is bilingual, featuring Portuguese and English, as well as subtitles in both languages. A TV documentary version of the film featured on Brazilian MTV earlier this year. Afrika was shot in high definition and as a result Mulcaire and de Oliveira produced a series of photographic prints that deconstruct the film into its component parts, which they are presenting as part of their exhibition at Goodman Gallery projects titled LIGHT AND VARIABLE WINDS WITH A LARGE LONG PERIOD SWELL. People familiar with shipping forecasts will recognise this phrase as representing epic conditions for surfing. The exhibition will also feature a wall piece and a series of sculptures and will run until 21 August 2011.

Afrika features Brazilian surfers Cassio ,Sanchez, Fernando Fanta, James Santos and Mario Massarelli, with guest appearances by Bruce Gold, Derek Hynd, Khayelihle Ncgobo, Bright Ntuli and Mbongeni Hlengwa. Original score by Shelby Gaines and Firstborn. Music by David Marks, Bailterspace and Eliza Callahan. Cinematography by Pablo Aguiar, Justin Healy, Ricardo Carioba, Mauricio Granado, Bobby de Beer, Paul van Jaarsveld. Edited by Duco Coops.

The artists have also created an interrelated sculpture during their residency at the Nirox Foundation titled Point Break. The work can be viewed by appointment.

Sphères 2009 Galleria Continua / Le Moulin

Joel Andrianomearisoa / Kader Attia / Willem Boshoff / Chris Burden / Angela de la Cruz / Carlos Garaicoa / Claire Gavronsky / Kendell Geers / Liam Gillick / Frances Goodman / Mark Handforth / Camille Henrot / Carsten Höller / Ann Veronica Janssens / Christoph Keller / Joseph Kosuth / Ange Leccia / Claude Lévêque / Pierre Malphettes / Thomas Mulcaire / Hans Op de Beeck / Nathaniel Rackowe Anselm Reyle / Ugo Rondinone / Bruno Serralongue / Rose Shakinovsky / Sudarshan Shetty / Nedko Solakov / Katja Strunz / Mikhael Subotzky / Sun Yuan & Peng Yu / Gavin Turk / Minnette Vari

Opening during the FIAC, Saturday, 24th of October 2009.
Preview from 12h00 – 14h30, brunch on the river bank.

For the second edition, the Spheres project re-involves the participation of several contemporary art galleries of international dimensions prompted by one desire: to join their diverse forces and energies to develop a shared exhibition – a new kind of exhibition experience – with no submission to any restricting theme. The Galleries will present artists from the five continents, whose works will be installed in and will relate to various parts of the exceptional complex. In doing so, they will engage with the rich history of the site.

24 October 2009 – 30 May 2010

Participating galleries:

AIR DE PARIS
GALLERIA CONTINUA
GALERIE KRINZINGER
KAMEL MENNOUR
ALMINE RECH GALLERY
ESTHER SCHIPPER
GOODMAN GALLERY

In Context presents a diverse group of international and South African artists who share a rigorous commitment to the dynamics and tensions of place, in reference to the African continent and its varied and complex iterations, and to South Africa in particular. The works – wide-ranging, frequently provocative – engage with a number of pressing questions about space, context, and geography.

In this gathering of artists – envisioned as a series of conversation and engagements – the question of context is posed once again, but problematised in various ways. The terms ‘local’ and ‘international’ are given new emphasis (especially at this juncture and in the context of one of the largest sporting events on the planet) and the following questions are posed: What does it mean to be a local artist in this age of the global? Do African artists wish to continue speaking of context? How do artists of the African Diaspora reflect on their distance from and proximity to home? Where is home? How have some artists living in Europe and the Americas inherited and absorbed an African heritage or sensibility, even when they have not visited the Continent? Have we reached a point in the story of contemporary art in which the term ‘African artist’ can be dispensed with or do we still require it as a marker of distance from Europe and North America? To what extent does the global art market rely upon or exploit the term to sell art in Europe and North America? Is there thus a distinction to be made between the way in which African artists represent themselves and the ‘Western’ reception of contemporary art from Africa?

Rather than present only artists from the African continent in this project, In Context also considers the works of artists who, though they may have some interest in South Africa, have not visited the country or anywhere else in Africa. Their connection to the continent might be one they have inherited from the history of slavery, or from the displacements of Diaspora and exile. The aim is to generate conversations between works and even to assess the relevance of the questions we have raised in the face of the works themselves. We may find ourselves entirely surprised by the answers. We hope to be provoked, to open engagements that overturn the concerns and themes we have offered, that render them more rather than less problematic, or that dispense with them altogether. We may indeed find that individual practice casts an entirely different light on the question of context.

In Context will take place in a number of non-commercial venues and, through a series of talks, walkabouts, and panel discussions, will promote engagement both with artists and audiences. The partners in this project take seriously the need to begin a number of collaborations that can be sustained beyond the events of In Context. They also seek to reach a wider audience than the usual gallery visitors and to promote appreciation of art through unconventional interventions outside of the traditional gallery space.

This winter the Goodman Gallery will relaunch its Parkwood space, which has been extensively reconsidered, both physically and conceptually. This launch will be initiated with a group exhibition simply titled Winter Show, featuring a range of luminary-status local and international artists. The show will not only present recent works by Goodman stalwarts such as William Kentridge, David Goldblatt, Sam Nhlengethwa and Mikhael Subotzky, but will also reveal a shift in the Gallery’s approach, showcasing work from around the Continent and beyond that is both explicitly and implicitly concerned with synergies and tensions between Africa and the rest of the globe. Some of the participating international artists, such as Ghada Amer and Hank Willis Thomas, are not only being showcased by the Goodman Gallery, but are now officially represented by us.

The Winter Show will act as a confluence of the Goodman Gallery’s top represented artists, as well as artists participating in In Context – a series of exhibitions and interventions currently taking place at Arts on Main and other venues in Johannesburg. Artists such as Jenny Holzer, Amer, Willis Thomas, Bili Bidjocka, Willem Boshoff and Kara Walker will participate in both shows, with the Winter Show presenting some of their more recent work. While In Context manifests an intimate and often candid exploration of the dynamics of the African continent, the Winter Show will offer a broader conceptual platform, covering many aspects of South African, African and global landscapes and conditions.

The Winter Show will elaborate on the thorny notion of the politics of representation, which Brenda Atkinson and Candice Breitz confronted in their 1999 collection of essays Grey Areas: Representation, Identity and Politics in Contemporary South African Art. The book was a direct response to the critique of Nigerian curator Okwui Enwezor, who was the creative director of the Second Johannesburg Biennial in 1997. At the time, Enwezor interrogated the practice of artists such as Breitz, Minnette Vári and Penny Siopis, intricately considering the question of ‘who has the right to represent whom?’ Now, over a decade later, accusations of misrepresentation have been revisited and reconsidered not only by Enwezor himself and those whose essays were included in Grey Areas, but by the art community at large. In Context magnifies these issues, while the Winter Show augments the dialogue, bringing new voices into the conversation.

Compelling features of the Winter Show include two of Walker’s 2009 films – which are based on narratives from archives of a bureau established in 1865 to assist African Americans with the transition from slavery to freedom – presenting the artist’s signature black-silhouette cut-out figures, which almost impossibly convey the complexities of race, gender, sexuality and power in their stilted and provocative movements. Jenny Holzer’s Purple Red Curve (2005) transmits a coalescence of master narratives through a curved electronic LED sign. Jeremy Wafer will create a site-specific wall drawing in the Goodman Gallery specifically for the show. Kentridge will present a series of new drawings produced this year as well as a maquette of the structure World on its Hind Legs, created in collaboration with Gerhard Marx. A large scale, steel version of this work will be launched at the Apartheid Museum on 8 July 2010 as part of In Context. The Winter Show will also feature an ongoing screening of all of the Goodman Gallery’s top art films by leading artists such as Kentridge and Vári.

The Goodman Gallery in Parkwood has undergone numerous physical transformations and now boasts a new showroom and a space dedicated to photographic works. We are in the process of establishing an art library accessible to the visiting public and will offer a range of educational art talks and events during the Winter Show.

With Goodman Gallery firmly established as a prestigious, world-class contemporary art institution, the Winter Show will reveal how the Gallery – beyond representing artists of the highest caliber – is dedicated to bringing an innovative programme of relevant and compelling international works to South Africa, offering audiences exposure to some of the best contemporary work being produced locally and abroad.