Haunch of Venison: I WILL SURVIVE – JOANA VASCONCELOS
Nicola McCartney, Tuesday, 17th August 2010
Let us congratulate Joana Vasconcelos and Haunch of Venison for breaking with the traditional ‘ever-so-comprehensive’ survey exhibition. Although this display of ambitious work struggles for collective cohesiveness (I was perturbed by being unable to crudely generalise the work), the individual pieces are thoughtful and provocative and it seems unfair to hold an artist to account for making too many and too varied works.
Passerelle (Catwalk) is a disturbing work made up of large ceramic dogs hung by their necks as if in an abattoir (see above). The viewer is invited to push a pedal that rotates the dogs along the conveyor-belt from which they hang until parts of their limbs begin to knock into each other and fall off. Like many of Vasconcelos’ works, Passerelle is exploiting the notion of artifice, whether gender based, political or material. The ceramic dog is a status symbol for the aspiring middle-class in Portugal. However, whilst seemingly mocking their status and literally destroying them Vasconcelos is also doing the contrary – the brutality of the dogs’ debilitation reminds us of the power of the uncanny and inanimate.
A number of Vasconcelos’ pieces in ‘I WILL SURVIVE’ are covered in bespoke webbings of crochet. Crochet is traditionally associated with women and craft, but in covering mock ancient statues with the material the objects become sexualised. Large ceramic ‘wild’ animals become mummified and trapped, emphasising unnatural captivity; and when covering a grand piano the beautiful object feels domesticated. Vasconcelos’ manipulation of the crochet tradition is a clever inversion of the perception of the craft and its captive object.
The installation Garden of Eden (Labyrinth) – an entire room with only a fibre-optic maze for navigation – is so vast and distinctive from other works on show that I questioned again if it was produced by the same artist. But it is important to reiterate that these are not sketches or experiments – each piece is executed so fully that you cannot imagine them existing in any other way; they seem no longer art but realities of their own artificial world – and ours.
Indicated by the title of this show – ‘I WILL SURVIVE’, taken from Gloria Gaynor’s popular 1978 song – Vasconcelos' fusion of contemporary culture is defiantly liberating, and demonstrates that we are no longer confined to genre or medium. After all, is it not time for our multi-dimensional, increasingly rhizomatic and schizophrenic world to accept art that functions on multitudinous planes?
www.haunchofvenison.com
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Collectors’ focus
Wood carving flourished in Southern Germany in the late 15th century onwards, resulting in exquisitely crafted devotional sculptures. Today, these figures and reliefs may be found for as little as £5,000, though the best examples command high prices.
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