19 March – 15 April, 2009
Opening 18 March, 2009 6:30 – 9:00pm
The figure of the shapeshifter occurs throughout mythology, religion, the arts and popular
culture. From Artemis transforming Actaeon into a stag through to Ravana, the ten-headed
shape-shifting abductor of Sita, through to Loki from Norse mythology, werewolves and
kitsune of Japan, shapeshifting is a powerful, often malign form of behaviour that is at the
centre of transformation myths across cultures. In turn these myths have permeated through literature, art and popular culture. ‘Shapeshifter’ features the work of 4 artists; Michael Bauer (b.1973, Germany), Richard Hamilton (b.1922, England), Justin Ponmany (b.1974, India) and Debanjan Roy (b.1975 India). The show takes its cue from Richard Hamilton’s work ‘Picasso’s Meninas’ (1973) and the many levels of ambiguity and shape-shifting that take place within it.
The work is both a homage to Velazquez’s painting but more specifically to the number of
variations that Picasso produced on Velazquez’s work. In the original, much-debated
painting, the viewer sees Velazquez depicted within the painting. He stands next to the
Infanta Margarita and her maids of honour, behind a large canvas supported on an easel, that he is working on. One of the debates around the work concerns what might be the subject matter of this ‘painting’ within the painting we are looking at. In a mirror on the back wall of the room we can see the reflection of King Philip IV and his queen Mariana, and thus one might assume that they ‘stand’ in fact in front of Velaquez and the Infanta, roughly about where the viewer themselves is standing, and thus are the subjects of Velazquez’s ‘painting’. But of course in a very real sense, the subject of the actual painting we are looking at is what has just been described (the Infanta, her maids of honour, Velaquez making a painting). Hamilton plays on this ambiguous push-pull between object and subject, and between subject and viewer, by inserting Picasso in place of Velazquez behind the upright canvas. Thus Picasso takes the place of Velazquez, looking toward the viewer who is occupying the space Philip IV and his queen, who are the subject of Velazquez’s painting within the original painting that is referenced though object of our gaze, that is, Hamilton’s work. Identity and subject-matter are in a state of permanent, irresolvable flux – and this underlies all the works in this exhibition.
Michael Bauer’s paintings take the form of odd, anthropomorphic forms that seem to be composites of abstraction and figuration. Human looking figures are distorted by a conglomeration of seemingly random elements so that they morph into unnerving hybrids where eyes and hands emerge out of murky smears and cloggy encrustations of paint. Harlequin imagery recurs through his paintings, recalling representations of these performers in early Picasso paintings; forlorn mimickers of the human condition.
In Justin Ponmany’s new photographs the artist digitally combines three views of his subjects, each taken from a different angle in order to create a disturbing panoramic view. The subjects range from men’s heads through to inanimate objects such as a tennis ball, each of which are expanded beyond the dimensions they are normally framed within. Ponmany has been inspired by the way internet mapping devices break down personal and geographical borders but these works suggest that the more we try to know or map something, the more elusive their form can become. Once more, the subject is split across different subject positions, none of which seem to cohere.
A similar mechanism is at work in Debanjan Roy’s work ‘India Shining VII’, that takes the form of a photograph and a sculpture. The photograph is a 1946 image of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Despite both being united in their determination to bring a national to freedom, they were very differing characters; the spiritual Gandhi was a mix of saint and activist, whilst the agnostic radical Nehru was a moody, idealistic intellectual. In front of the photograph is a fibreglass sculpture based on the photograph with the difference that the artist has inserted himself in the place of Nehru and is linked to Gandhi, not through the shared private aside of the photograph but through the shared earphone sockets of an iPod.
This group exhibition is accompanied by a solo exhibition of K. Laxma Goud in the
downstairs gallery.
