rosenclaire / re•collections / 2010
Goodman Gallery Cape proudly presents the first solo exhibition by rosenclaire in South Africa for over twenty years. Working under the name rosenclaire, Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky present a conversation between their respective and collective practices and identities in re.collections.
The show’s title refers to a collection of arbitrary objects and thoughts waiting to be re-ordered, renamed and remembered: a heterogeneous gathering. Across-pollination between the flea-market, the studio, art history and personal experience, the show is a juxtaposition of painting, drawing, sculpture and installation. rosenclaire refer to their work as context-specific, governed by implicit signification where the subject matter defines the choice of media and stylistic convention.
re.collections, implies a reference to collections, collecting, correcting, naming, renaming and reframing cultural constructs of art and artifice. Here Gavronsky’s remake of Goya’s caprices, complimented by her large paintings and bronze sculptures tease and taunt our notions of art and marketing the mark. Shakinovsky’s museum sleuthing and Brechtian interruptions dissolve the boundaries and transgress the borders between art and non-art. A video by Shakinovsky from an ongoing series of illicitly filmed museum walks, and a sound piece by rosenclaire complete this intervention. re.collections and its implications with regard to history and memory, both personal and political, are explored by Gavronsky, in a collapsing and enfolding of history, in which she presents Dante’s hell, side by side with the Beslan massacre of the innocents, in a series of large oil paintings.
Artworks
About
rosenclaire
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Live and work in Florence, Italy
Claire Gavronsky (b. 1957, Johannesburg) works in a variety of mediums, most notably in painting and sculpture. Her work often uses visual references to historical paintings, and cues are sometimes taken from events from everyday life. Memory, racism, violence against women and children are some of the themes which run through her oeuvre.
Notable solo and group exhibitions include: Io e Me. Autoritratti nel Lockdown. Sala 1, Centro Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2021); Speechless with Rose Shakinovsky, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2018); Right to the Future, Museum of 20th and 21st Century Art, St Petersburg (2017); Colour Theory with Rose Shakinovsky, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2014); Dakar Biennale, Dakar (2010); and Dystopia, collaboration with William Kentridge, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Ghent (2009-2010).
Rose Shakinovsky’s (b. 1953, Johannesburg) work defies any stylistic category as it consists of work that ranges from the re-presentation and decontextualization of found objects, found images and found situations, to delicately painted abstractions and ironic bronzes. The work concerns itself with current political and social discourses while simultaneously referencing and reconstructing art historical edifices. Her present research is concerned with discourses pertaining to the posthuman, transhuman and the consequences of climate change.
Notable solo and group exhibitions include: Io e Me. Autoritratti nel Lockdown. Sala 1, Centro Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2021); Speechless with Claire Gavronsky, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2018); Right to the Future, Museum of 20th and 21st Century Art, St Petersburg (2017); COLORI: L’emozione dei COLORI nell’arte, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli (2017); Assessing Abstraction, South African National Gallery (2017); Colour Theory with Rose Shakinovsky, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2014); Dakar Biennale, Dakar (2010).
Shakinovsky collaborates with Gavronsky as the artist “rosenclaire”, as wives and as dedicated mentors who have run a renowned artists residency program in Tuscany for the past 30 years.
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