A monolithic structure, nestled between streams of hooting taxis and clouds amassing from suits on smoke break, remains ominous in its overbearing charcoal façade. Located in downtown Johannesburg and enclosed in palisade fencing is the Standard Bank Gallery.
The dark grey industrial compound is an icon of Capitalism, but perhaps a necessary evil for privatized art funding. The legacy of which extends over the last twenty-six years. The company claims that, “sponsorships are a valuable part of Standard Bank Group’s social responsibility and marketing communication strategies.” This phrase highlights their mutually beneficial relationship with the arts. Patronage as publicity.
On crossing the physical border between public and private space, maroon banners coating large pillars, advertising the exhibitions on show are foregrounded by indigenous plants. Elevated flowerbeds are peppered with aloe camperi. This greenery contextualizes the South African space in a way that some of the other architectural features do not.
Broad glass doors open up into the double-volume foyer. The parquet floors that extend throughout the space are nostalgic of Johannesburg homes built in the thirties, a pre-Democracy trend that has come back into vogue. The Standard Bank Gallery is divided into two distinct galleries. On the ground floor level “On the Trail of Qing and Orpen – From the Colonial era to the Present” is on show.
Bright orange vinyl lettering contrasts the dark walls designating the space of the exhibition. This ‘downstairs’ space often houses ‘historical’ art objects. Whereas the upstairs venue is reserved for ‘contemporary’ works. The distinct visual relationship between “Upstairs and Downstairs” only reinforces the constructed Eurocentric hierarchy between “art” and “artefact”.
Twenty-one steps later, one reaches the upstairs landing platform Of Darkness and of Light. An instant immersion into Chimera [2001] – a four channel video installation projected onto suspended sheets of cream cloth. The images depicted include freezes from the Voortrekker Monument – women loading weapons which then morph into grotesque figures. The visual imagery speaks to the history of Afrikaner culture.
The title invokes the mythology of a human-beast hybrid – echoed in the transmutated figures. An effective element of the piece is the physical insertion of oneself while viewing the piece. This activates the passivity of viewership as additional shadows emerge in the work. Ghostly sounds reverberate through the circular arena creating an eerie ambiance in the dimly lit space.
Two corridors lead off from the landing – demanding the viewer navigate Chimera before progressing through the rest of the exhibition. A thematic link of mythology and the female form conceptually connect the works. Vári attempts to investigate her personal position in a South African context and engages with broader notions of trauma, memory and history.
A linear chronology guides the curation of the show. Some works are more overtly political than others. Alien [1998] is rendered digitally from a historical and personal archive. Vári inserts herself in a distorted nude form. Military helicopters and political forms of oration are used as icons of the Nationalist State – implying a history of violence that manifests in the malformation of the artist’s body.
The curatorial decision to place Alien [remastered] – ink stills – adjacent to the original Alien diffuses the visual power of the piece. Only a sense of redundancy emerges from the union. The choice of ink on paper that reads as water colour to depict stills of a video piece is also dubious. This decision seems like a rehashing of old work and perhaps a thinly guised attempt to make the work more ‘sellable’.
The white cube aesthetic is used to validate Vári’s work and locate in the ‘contemporary’. Other elements also uphold the Eurocentric curatorial narrative – the usual suspects; a temperature controlled environment, spotlighting, the height at which works are displayed and the use of labels are all reinforce this tradition. The gallery does claim to uphold a set of strict standards as a self-proclaimed “inspirational exhibition space”. However, some of the final articulation of installation leaves something to be desired.
Of Darkness and of Light is acclaimed as a “nuanced consideration of cultural, gender and racial stereotypes in the South African psyche”. In some ways Vári is successful in physically and ideologically locating herself in the South African context. However, to some degree the show and her use of ‘self’ as a medium comes close to self-indulgent display of whiteness. Perhaps one of the issues that Vári fails to address, is her implicit privilege, especially when represented in a space like the Standard Bank gallery.
