Jacki McInnes at Gordart
by Robyn Sassen
Jacki McInnes is developing a viable arts presence after a career in radiotherapy. Via Gordon Froud, of Gordart, she asked me to open her show, 'Vocabulary of Ambiguity - for her', which had previously run at Bell-Roberts in Cape Town. I was flattered, but it raised issues.
My role at ArtThrob is broadly 'critic'. This means I go to galleries, and attempt to provide an argued perspective about a show's strengths or flaws. My specialty is in art theory and history. I should know what I'm talking about.
In essence, though, I believe the critic to be a genus of the PR species. The idea is to alert a reading public to something. Whether it is good, bad or indifferent is for the critic to decide, but at the same time, the critic, with diplomacy perhaps, is charged to serve the arts fraternity by enabling it to grow critically. Not least because space on ArtThrob is less limited than it would be in print, here we can comfortably review the bad and indifferent as well as the good. Dealing with a public, there are two ways of establishing whether the work you've nurtured and suffered for, is up to scratch - criticism and sales.
Margaret Atwood said there are three ways in which an artist can make money: being born into it, finding a patron or going commercial. Granted, she was referring to writers, but the metaphor holds for visual artists too. Each option is stained by compromise. Not many of us opt for those positions, and money becomes something we earn through other channels.
Be that as it may, I believe it unproductive to either only 'diss' or praise a show. That said, being asked to stand in front of a bunch of gallery-visiting, wine-quaffing strangers to speak about an exhibition should morally subvert the critical role. Or should it? Should a critic drop her defences in the face of soft journalism, thumbnail description and popular explanation? Does this trivialise the show or patronise the audience? Is this dilemma incurred in the name of social decorum?
The opening speech is the sideshow: no one's come to see you, but they must get something out of what you say and it must be painlessly brief. Poised to start speaking, I was grateful that McInnes' show had its strengths. This is more or less what I said:
'Jacki and I met up in Switzerland during August last year. She was on a residency and I was part of the 'Min(e)dfields' team. When I first saw her I experienced dejavu. I didn't want to act on it for fear of making a fool of myself. I recognised her, but couldn't place her. Being in a foreign country, I was nervous to trust my memory. Eventually we established that I'd taught Jacki at Unisa some years back.
'When an artist elects to work with a social issue, she is embarking upon a difficult course. On one hand it gives a body of art identity. On the other, the artist is compelled to find his or her own language in which to express this issue. There can be obliqueness in trying to visually depict a theoretical issue. The artist's challenge, then, is to develop a language that dovetails meaningfully with the issue in the work, without being illustrative or didactic.
'Jacki's choice of materials - salt and lead - attain a level of abjection and horror in their connotations. The issue is abortion and it tilts a challenge at the reproductive role of women in society. Consequently the works are implicitly about pain and brutality, sacrifice and spilt blood. A coat hanger is sinister in the background of a piece. The colour of corroding material alludes to haemorrhage. Salt and lead are each both friend and foe - salt has healing, yet corrosive properties, lead is malleable yet indestructible, toxic yet used protectively.
'In this show, we see salt cast in mild steel trays. Like drawings, they are two-dimensional, but there is more. The salt is brittle, yet we can see the effects of its quiet destruction: it corrodes the fabric beneath it. Jacki has painstakingly engineered and sewn a pair of baby shoes from lead. They are sweet yet grim by virtue of the medium.
'The work is about process: chemical process that operates beyond the artist's control, and controlled process. Woven from copper and lead strips, two new works, constructed as grids, swollen with empty pregnancies, provide a text, censoring itself, in rhythms of weft and warp.
'Kim Gurney, ArtThrob's Cape editor, reviewed this show a few months ago. Part of the thrust of her argument considered the work in terms of the theoretical discourse with which Jacki grapples. I concur with Gurney's approach: Jacki's competent focus is neither didactic nor moralising. The issues are visceral: deeper than something readily described with language. Given the nature of the discourse upon which Jacki has embarked, the exhibition is not for women only, and offers points of relevance for any visitor. Congratulations, Jacki.'
Closed: January 29
Gordart Gallery
78 Third Avenue, Melville, Johannesburg
Tel: (011) 726 8519 or 084 423 8635
Email: gordon@gordart.co.za
Hours: Wed - Sat 10.30am - 6pm
