Stevenson
26.03 - 30.04.2022

Somehow when things collide, [when] two opposites collide in this dialectical way, some sort of synthesis is engineered or brought about — a new form, a new meaning or a new way emerges.

– John Akomfrah

The latest exhibition at Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town, ‘Juxtapositions,’ brings together works by Shine Shivan and Jane Alexander. While Shivan engages the dynamics of power, love and wisdom through the teachings of lineages of sages who lived on the Indian subcontinent in ancient times, Alexander’s exploration of power and love is heavily affected by the apartheid South Africa of her childhood. Both engage in practices of myth-making, with works that converge and diverge in unexpected ways. 

Alexander and Shivan speak in winks and allusions, leaving room for interpretation through hints and suggestions. In this exhibition, they lead us into a contemplation of the mythical and the mystical, nudging us to creep into different kinds of secret and unseen worlds where nothing is untrue and nothing is unreal. The beauty of the exhibition is its affect; its success is in its ability to elicit pure emotion, where all constructed narratives collapse into themselves. 

Walking through the exhibition, I found it difficult to make sense of everything I was seeing. I felt moved and didn’t always understand why. Perhaps as a defense, my logic-driven and mindmap-loving mind fabricated a mythical framework of its own to help me reflect on what I was thinking and feeling. The framework is delineated into four acts — cortège, collision, composure and ceremony.  

Jane Alexander, Infantry with beast, 2012. Courtesy of Stevenson Gallery.

Cortège

The first act takes place in the dimly lit back room of the gallery. Alexander’s Infantry with beast (2012) is in conversation with Shivan’s Study Forms. Over the years, Alexander has sculpted many bodies, many not clearly human — somewhere between animal and man. Infantry with beast is a pack of twenty-seven naked figures cast in found shoes. All their right legs lift at an angle mid walk on a red carpet. Ahead of them, a small beast is frozen in motion – perhaps to attack, more likely to retreat. The hybrids are in procession, one that unexpectedly initiates an experience of both space and time through the substance and the shadow. This pack of dog-like human figures, or human-like dog figures, activates a sense of time through the suggestion of a march forward. Writing about processional ethics for Artforum,  Homi Bhabha proposes a few different kinds of processions, what he refers to as “a throng of processions” – processions for saints and politicians; processions of protest and prayer; wedding processions and public demonstrations, raising the question of the procession as a “political and ethical movement of people and things.” In Alexander’s Infantry.. the marchers seem sure of themselves, and the march seems somewhat final. Shivan’s procession is in the form of a row of parsons – or perhaps they are nuns or witches. With unblinking eyes, they form a linear arrangement that faces Alexander’s foot guards. Theirs is a procession in limbo; they are static and unmoved. 

Collision

In the second act, forces move towards each other, at times melding into an integrated whole. In Dhwandh (2019-22), two figures tightly fold into each other’s arms. The sensation of touch is palpable. Through her text “On Touching — The Inhuman That Therefore I Am” Karen Barad reminds us that “so much happens in a touch: an infinity of others—other beings, other spaces, other times—are aroused.” She provokes further, “Is touching not by its very nature always already an involution, invitation, invisitation, wanted or unwanted, of the stranger within?” Within Shivan’s work the involution is seen through the connection with oneself: palms touching in a gesture of prayer as seen in Banke (2019-22) or a deep connection to others as seen in Mitr (2019-22) and Nidhivan (2019-22). This sense of intimacy is extended towards non-human beings through works depicting the close interaction among species: birds, snakes, and lotus flowers. 

Through Shivan’s Nadan (2019-22) series, we witness the battle between Krishna and the five-headed serpent Kaliya – a conflict that is obscured by a seemingly tranquil and serene image. Collision, of course, can be articulated beyond its potential for destruction or violence. When two forces collide, they can birth something new. Through his “philosophy of montage”, John Akomfrah proposes a collision as that which allows ambiguity and contradiction to hit up against each other. This is a way to create a third meaning. Thinking with Homi Bhabha once more, his third meaning is in the form of a third space — a space meditated upon as the place where the oppressed can plot their liberation and where beings come together embodied in their particularity: gods, humans, human-like dogs, birds, snakes, lotus flowers. 

Composure

​​The third act brings to the fore a state of equanimity which can be read through Shivan’s three works on paper, Lekshmi. A woman with long black hair sleeps peacefully, her head resting on her own arm for support. She is enveloped in a warm cocoon of blue and yellow – serene and safe. Through its silks and cottons, Alexander’s veiled Attendant (2008-10) embodies a rigid composure while moving us towards the ceremonial. 

Shine Shivan, Lekshmi, 2019-2022. Courtesy of Stevenson Gallery.

Ceremony

In the final act, both Alexander and Shivan usher us into strange ceremonies. Accompanied by the ruminant and the ghost, the harbinger signals what is to come. The drama is marked by an unusual encounter between the three figures. Resin, a bell, a wood knobkerrie, industrial gloves, rubber straps, rope, machetes and sickles mark residues of violence or violences to come. Here, ceremony is not the ritualized moment of revelry, but rather the protocol that precedes moments of brutality and ferocity. Shivan’s ceremony is demonstrated in the large-scale work on paper; Gehvarvann (2019-22) which depicts community and communion. 

Jane Alexander, Harbinger (2004) with ghost (2007) and hobbled ruminant (2003-2004). Courtesy of Stevenson Gallery.

Concluding Thoughts 

These four acts — cortège, collision, composure and ceremony — read as shards and splinters, invitations to think through juxtaposition as it relates to proximity and collocation — that is to say, to journey together with the artists through a strange, beautiful and evocative world. ‘Juxtapositions’ frustrates and interrupts the hegemony of sense-making and linear rationality, illuminated through Agnes Martin’s observation that “from music, people accept pure emotion but from art, they demand explanation.” In ‘Juxtapositions,’ the explanation is a peripheral device. The magic (in all senses of the word) lies in the image.