A PRISTINE LAND INTERRUPTED. A solo exhibition by Paul Van Schalkwyk. At the Association of Visual Arts until April 22. DANNY SHORKEND reviews
THESE photographic works are a unique view – quite literally – of the artist’s fascination with the Namibian dessert. He has captured these quite spectacular scenes from an aerial perspective.
The result is a highly original set of photographs that are neither mere documentary records, nor scientific factual data gathering.
Yet things are not as simple as that: in the very practice of “recording”, one does not merely reproduce, but creatively produce and transform the “object” under consideration.
The artist is aware of his interventions, of his foot-print in the sand as it were, and therefore the careful curation of Jackie Ruth Murray to carefully place the metal remnants of an aeroplane expresses the fact that firstly there is a process to the acquiring of such images and secondly that the environment in all its pristine beauty and “otherness” can only be known via our interaction with it.
It is like the proverbial photon of light that changes the very light particles that one wishes to observe.
The result as in modern physics is the uncertainty principle; applied in this context – the ever-nuanced and changing object/subject that is nature and every attempt to “capture” it, tame it, frame and even understand it, forever eludes ones grasp.
This ephemerality – the tree in the forest that makes a sound because there is some one to hear it – means the way we construct and understand nature is via the mediation devises of human design, Neither nature nor humans are innocent as such. There is but relationship with neither “side” absolute in isolation.
The spoor marks and tracking in the photographs, the winding desert vistas, the craggy rock surfaces, the hint of animal life and mist, caves, acidic colouration encapsulate a memory of place that is at once solid and light.
There is a complex vortex of fractal-like lines, as well as jarring colour combinations.
Perhaps my only critique is that the plaques with written ditties about the natural environment were rather over-done. I felt I needed space, quite palpable space, to see the works in other ways, say as abstract expressionistic painterly incantations or surreal journeys of the self into uncharted waters, a psychological entry point that pines for the sounds and spatial abundance that nature may offer – at least through the medium of art.
Yet the art is somewhat subservient to scientific and world-bettering aims. While this is noble and uplifting, one has to be very careful asserting that art is moralistic. We know of many societies in which culture was extremely important and advanced and yet failed miserably on ethical matters. While I do not maintain that art is simply for arts sake, I endorse a post modern refutation of the hallowed and reified form and institution of art.
Nevertheless, the work is timely. Consider the field of the aesthetics of everyday life (so name AEL) where it is argued that all aspects of everyday life can be incorporated to include and express an aesthetic dimension toward a life-enhancing way of life.
In this respect, the works’ focus and concern for environmental awareness and care for nature means that the artists’ aesthetics links to knowledge (particularly evident in his short descriptions of each work). The problem here is that there exists a tension between the aesthetic experience and understanding.
As Kant argued that the experience of beauty cannot be subsumed under a definite concept. In such terms, it is not certain whether art is the best forum to work for change in our thinking about the environment.
On the other hand, perhaps the artist has found a confluence, a meeting point between science and art. Yet to me this remains a tension reflected in the image/text disjunction.
All in all though, the images are refreshing, immaculately finished c type light jet prints on fugi matt crystal archive paper and offer the viewer a portal for the appreciation of nature.
This aesthetic experience is certainly the way to the heart and thus informs decisions concerning the world we live in so that our knowledge acquisition is balanced by a sense of awe, humility and beauty, for we are all the product of nature in the first place.
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