On seeing ancient things and thinking 'I made that'.
I was fascinated to see a certain African cult object in a museum. It came from the culture of the Bamana people. Their Boli represented highly stylised animal figures that they 'activated spiritually' in their secret rituals. What interested me initially, was that the object was on show in its glass case and yet, despite it being completely out of place, it seemed to have managed to retain a certain intensity.
Reading about them afterwards, I discovered that in their original culture, the power the objects have is, supposedly, in the secrecy surrounding them. Their presence, their physical characteristics imply: 'I am an object that withholds'. Their power lies therefore in creating a paradox or conflict, simultaneously externalising and internalising, revealing and concealing. Very appropriate if one considers the effect they had on me. Not only has my work in the past revolved around those ideas but strangely, my first thought when I first saw a Boli was 'this object has been made by me".
So I decided to make one.
This put me in a strange position, and I think this is the crux of the matter.
The closeness and the affinity I felt were for an object from a very different culture, which is partly why I was interested in it. But at the same time it's clearly impossible for me to really comprehend such a culture. Truly, my feelings were over an object whose identity was a fabrication, a projection of myself, or similarly, a cultural construct with no connection with the original reality of an African cult object.
At the same time this was why it was so fascinating and, in a way disturbing, to search for the 'authentic' within the 'false'. I found this contradiction takes me to make objects that have the potential to express, like an energy inside that exhumes life, but in their present state that option doesn't exist.
Maybe that's why I'm drawn to objects that look displaced in their settings. In the past, I've done some pieces based on objects I took from museums. These ancient sculptures seemed awkward and absurd in their imposed role as participants within the belief system of 'authenticity'.
Perhaps, also, my own cultural displacement in London has something to do with it.
Ana Genovés
2003
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Text by Cadine Navarro on the work of Ana GenovésBased on a discussion with the artist following her opening at File Under Occupation, London 2006.
"When I was fourteen my dog died in front of me. I looked into her wide open eyes, in one moment they were still looking. A second later her soul had vanished."
Genovés' work touches on this tension between the detached surfaces of objects or creatures and the essence or soul within that can make them seem alive. Much in the line of the tradition of sculpture there is an awareness of the appearance of material and how this superficial layer defines the object as a whole. Genovés plays with the literal connection between a word the and thing it is describing and points to the limitations of our tools for defining, categorizing and controlling that which is untouchable, unfathomable and otherwise unidentifiable in nature. Within a gallery space Genovés will place a piece of work that precisely resembles mud and the piece is rightly called mud. Others include chunks, snow, stone blocks, etc. They are what they are and the absurdity of it all lies in the precise, accurate and literal rendition of the thing it is called. A title would only falsify the object and remove it from its generic existence.
One day Genovés visits the Museum of Mankind and falls upon the African Boli sculptures. Strange, ritualistic objects of deep cultural meaning, these silent pieces hold an intense meaning and power through a kind of common secret acceptance and understanding. A significant object or creature is chosen and then covered with blood, mud and other natural materials until it is no longer identifiable. The end result is a self-contained object carefully hiding a soul that is alive but repressed and can no longer escape its outer shell. Genovés is concerned not with the making of this object but with the appearance of the form. Through form she explores the existence of the untouchable, the unperceivable. Through process she removes herself from the literal. Fascinated with the intensity that can exist in darkness, her symbolic structures are humanized through palpable emotions and unseen presences enmeshed within them, hinting at our struggle to control and tame them. Genovés plays with the innate fears and desires we have in Western society yet still manages to steer away from cliché by keeping the work quite austere. The end result is a symbolic representation of something ungraspable, almost unfathomable as she removes our safety mechanisms of recognition and definition. With each intentional crack stretching across her concrete and clay-covered polystyrene forms, we see the cracks becoming more and more obvious within our own social constructs.
Genovés also recreates the specific spaces designated as a place of worship. Geometric forms outline a space of spirituality, an unidentifiable home where this "otherness" can exist within another space. The space is inescapably cold and harsh yet it is simultaneously alive with meaning, symbolic power and soul. Each of her pieces is the result of process. Through the mesmerizing process that develops there is an unavoidable intensity of emotion in the absurd layering of material. The object transforms through her believing hands that continue to cover up an indiscernible intensity that lies at the heart of the darkness.
Her latest show at the File Under Occupation presents a large grey-colored form placed askew in the gallery space, an amorphic structure whose criss-crossed armature is revealed in its undulating surface tensions. Referring again to the African Boli, it is a structure that seems to house or hide something deep within. As one massive organic piece it represents something wild, something dead, something ancestral, something we are all sadistically attracted to. Filing the entire gallery space with this creature of cracked surfaces and unusual form, one can only be left speechless and puzzled by this strange otherness that somehow touches on a deep feeling within that we had been trying to ignore for so long.
Cadine Navarro
October 2006
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"I use the idea of an idealized strangeness and the fear this carries: fear of what is not known by us or impossible to comprehend.
I like to take all this and make it exist in a physical form and within a context that restrains it. The object feels out of place, awkward with its content, constrained by its blockishly correct shape.
I find that it still has that energy, either it contains it or some act of intensity happened there. Yet, a part of me can't help thinking that it remains a borrowed cliché, 'false' somehow, so can one trust it? Hopefully, yes and no."
Ana Genovés
2005
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"One lazy afternoon, as I pushed my trolley into the shopping mall, I saw a bright coloured mass in the middle of the hall. Approaching it, a scaled down circus revealed itself, with flags, marquee and all. There was nobody around, just the ambient music. I took a moment to adjust to the strangeness of the sight and as I came closer the contrasting black and yellow stripes on the red carpet transformed into... was it possible? ...A huge tiger! just laying there. Not registering fully, I stood staring at its head, when suddenly, this big yellow eye opened and looked back at me, right at me, into my eye. The sense of this animal's 'aliveness', the enormity of its inner essence, overwhelmed me, shook me. The background music made itself present as I retreated. I looked back and saw the bright contrasting circus colours once again with sadness.
Can something be dead and alive at the same time?
In my work I'm trying to make an object whose inner essence fights with its appearance. Whenever I go to museums, I get a sense of rigidity and stagnation that paradoxically, makes me think of the soul. Here, an old sculpture of a beast was probably created to refer to the power of the wild. Time has made it slightly pathetic because there hardly remain any details to look at, and its vague form has been put on a white plinth, neat in its sad state. It's obviously a proper piece of art... but with something that manages to escape the stifling nature of that.
When it comes to objects relating directly to death, such as monuments, tombs, etc., I feel the same thing happens. The difficulty of managing the ungraspable makes us react with a rigid defensive formality.
Concentrating, perhaps, on giving more intensity to this ungraspable element, I recalled one particular African cult object I had been drawn to. It came from the culture of the Bamana people. Their Boli represented highly stylised animal figures that they 'activated spiritually' in their secret rituals. The power the objects have is in the secrecy surrounding them. Their presence, their physical characteristics imply: ' I am an object that withholds '. The power of their work lies therefore in creating a paradox or conflict, simultaneously externalising and internalising, revealing and concealing.
My interest in making one of these objects in the 'Altar Pieces' series, lay in the number of questions it raised.
Do these objects change once you know they come from African cult objects? By which I mean, where is the 'me' and the 'them' in the Altar Pieces? Is there such a thing as 'them' or am I using my own western version of what 'the primitive' is? I find myself hovering between expressing through the material and consciously using the symbol of the African as a vehicle.
On the whole, I find the 'Altar Pieces' have a strangeness in their presence that fascinates me, mainly because they are so out of place; culturally (are they western?), time wise (are they as old as they seem?), purpose (do they know what they are doing?...)
It seems my work always wants to communicate a certain holding in, repressing whatever it is."
Ana Genovés
2002