The exhibition will draw together a broad range of thematic and material works that express metaphorically and in their inherent material and creation, notions relating to pointure (lace, trap and ghost). The project invites artists producing in a broad range of media, but whose work reflects in thought, or action upon the following idea of pointure.

 

Zebra Skin
2012
464 white shoe brushes (bristles removed and replaced with bristles from 300 black shoe brushes)
220 cm long
180 cm wide
Height of brushes 1.5 cm
Photo: A Strack

Derrida’s metaphor of pointure … resonates on the act of reading paintings, evidenced in Heidegger and Shapiro’s texts. In his consummate reading of Derrida’s notion of pointure Michael Payne (1993: 229) notes that “language in its search for truth punctures the painting, not as one might take a knife to a canvas but as one might lace a shoe.”  In this sense the humble shoe lace becomes a related dimension of the master metaphor, pointure - pointing to the further dimensions of this action: ‘relation’ and ‘restitution’ of things otherwise separate (painting and language, cutting and sewing together). In addition to these two poignant metaphors Derrida’s ‘Restitutions’ does not miss a further meaning in the word lace. The French word for lace, le lacet can also mean trap or snare (Payne 1993: 229). In this sense Van Gogh’s empty shoes with open laces represent an empty trap, a vacuum of presence to delve into – where only ghosts can be found. Ghost is then the last metaphor in ‘Restitutions’. For Heidegger the empty shoes resonate with the ghost of a peasant woman and in their ‘unfilled’ presence point to the ontology of all beings – non-being; while for Shapiro they remain an indexical portrait of Van Gogh (Payne 1993: 230). In a sense Derrida’s textual voices in ‘Restitutions’ embody these present and past ghosts connected (laced) to Van Gogh’s shoes as well as more recent spirits. One such voice makes reference to an army of ghosts and piles of dispossessed shoes (Derrida cited in Payne 1993: 230). Recent history allows no other explanation than the piles of shoes collected and inventoried by the Nazis (Payne 1993: 230).

Ann-Marie Tully and Jennifer Kopping

Van Gogh’s old shoe brush tamed
2012
The artist’s easel, bristles from 210 white shoe brushes and 180 black shoe brushes
190 cm high
65 cm wide
77 cm deep
Photo: A Strack

Foster Gang
2010
Vellum, bamboo
Photo: V. Cowling

Après avoir, le temps de la manifestation nationale Monuments et Animaux, colonisé divers sites à travers la France, certaines bêtes hivernent à Paris. Elles viennent peupler une forêt mystérieuse implantée au sein de la Conciergerie. 

En s’aventurant dans cet espace sauvage, le public fera d’étranges rencontres. Au gré de sentiers à thème – l’allée des chimères, la route du lac ou le chemin du bout du monde –, il découvrira des oeuvres surprenantes : objets de fantasme, miroirs réfléchissant nos travers et nos faiblesses ou témoins alarmants des grands enjeux environnementaux, les créatures ici rassemblées illustrent les diverses fonctions de l’animal dans l’imaginaire de nos contemporains.

Commissaire : Claude d’Anthenaise, Directeur du Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, assisté de Raphaël Abrille, Conservateur au Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature.
A lire: Claude d’Anthenaise, 2012,  Bêtes Off. Editions Patrimoine. Centre des Monuments Nationaux, Paris. pp. 82-87. ISBN 978-2-7577-0148-5

24 September 2011 – 22 October 2011

Threshold implies an upper limit to tolerance levels as climate change shifts the balance long established in ecosystems. The exhibition, as its title suggests, engages the premise that not only are the climatic conditions of the planet at a tipping point, but that we need to enter into closer relationship with the earth, this place we call home.” Curator: Virginia MacKenny, 2011.

Younge visited the area around Cuito cuanavale, the site of intensive struggle during the 1987-88 offensive by the SADF (supporting UNITA) against FAPLA and Cuban soldiers. As a form of witnessing, Younge painted indigenous birds decimated by the conflict on the underside of vellum stretched over the detritus of war… His project was, as he puts it, a way of “reactivating the airwaves”. Recreating images of birds not seen in the area for years his act of recovery was recognised by locals who identified, in the vernacular, birds’ names such as ‘Mutoko’, Tshihundjo, and Ondia Makunde’.” Virginia MacKenny, 2011

Samuel Hendricks
2009
Archival ink on paper
1950 x 1120

(Assistant: V. Cowling)

Hiératiques, frontaux, glorieux. Nulle aspérité, nulle transfiguration de la réalité ne vient entacher la confrontation directe avec l’appareil photographique lorsque Gavin Younge, le temps d’une série de clichés, cristallise des portraits d’hommes noirs sur fond blanc au sein d’une composition froidement structurée. Pris de plain-pied, ces portraits sériels se délivrent sans aucun artifice dans une neutralité délibérée, semblant ainsi emprunter les codes plastiques d’une photographie documentaire telle qu’a pu la pratiquer August Sanders ou Walker Evans dans les années 1920-1930, alors qu’ils tâchaient de rendre compte des hommes de leurs temps à la fois dans leur dignité individuelle, mais aussi dans leur rôle social. Maud de la Forterie, 2009. Deep Skin. La Noire Galerie, Paris

+ de informations – contact@lanoiregalerie.com

The Foster Gang is  a collection of ‘fossil’ cameras in sculptural format. The son of a failed gold prospector himself, Younge is intrigued by the web of deceit, intrigue and plain crookedness that built the City of Gold. This ‘family portrait’ of the infamous brigand and his associates, along with his vellum ‘bokkie’ Peggy (see below), points to a hominoid conundrum—are we the hunters, or the hunted?  ’This is Younge’s forté, to treat history as a story not yet fully told.’
Mark Read, Foreword, Gavin Younge [Cradle Snatcher], 2010.

Peggy. 2010. Vellum, resin cast, bamboo. 180 x 130 x 86 cm (Photo: G. Younge)

For sale throughEverard Read Gallery – 011 788 4805 or 021 418 4527

Flight Delayed. 2010. Vellum, oxhide, plywood, styrofoam. 65 x 184 x 55 cm (Photo: G. Younge)

For sale throughEverard Read Gallery – 011 788 4805 or 021 418 4527

Angola was the final horizon over which the terror of South African state militarism appeared. For thousands of young white conscripts, and their African opponents, it was also the scene of catastrophic emotional and physical wounding. Even today, a decade after the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, to say ‘Angola’ is to conjure up a time of pathological, horrific warfare exported to civilian populations, and in most conscripts, a profound, far-reaching guilt about their involvement in genocidal state aggression. Even for the most extreme South African officers, who completed their Angolan service with apparent relish, and for whom crossing the Cunene River was a first step towards later atrocities, Angola was debilitating.

Gavin Younge has concerned himself with the problem of violence and representation for almost two decades. As one of South Africa’s most innovative sculptors, he has explored the traces left by violence in society at large. In our country, it is as though a catastrophic wind has been blowing a long while, and we stand now in the eerie calm after its passing, confronting an endless, sandstone landscape of distorted Aeolian forms. For sculptors like Younge, representing the effects of this mutilating force requires a variety of expressive languages, and an indirectness of approach.- David Bunn.

Excerpt from Prosthesis—Artwork by Gavin Younge the Decade 1997–2007. La Noire Galerie, Paris. 2007, pp. 29–30.

Quagga Project:   Forteresse de Salses 24/06/11 — 31/10/11

My project for the French Monuments Council (Cheval du Bataille—Monuments et Animaux) touched on three notions.

Firstly; skin, goat skins or vellum. In Africa, these animals have come to symbolize poverty, overcropping, and desertification.
Often their hides are marked by the scars and scratches imparted by barbed wire. The opaque and transparent areas furnish me with a sort of ‘underpainting’.

Secondly, the work addresses the idea of freedom. Here the animals have escaped their hunter or herdsmen, and fly out the embrasure.

Thirdly, the fortress, created for war between Spain and France in 1504, reminds us that war, violence, and oppression are still with us. Throughout the world, dictators and barbarians exist—the work insists that we pay attention, and remain vigilant.

 

«Marquées par son engagement contre l’apartheid, ses œuvres laissent entrevoir des parcelles de souffrance véhiculées par l’utilisation récurrent du vélin, métaphore du corps et de la peau où se lisent les plaies et cicatrices d’une société au douloureux passé.» Claude d’Anthenaise, Directeur, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature à Paris.

 

The Foster Gang is  a collection of ‘fossil’ cameras in sculptural format. The son of a failed gold prospector himself, Young is intrigued by the web of deceit, intrigue and plain crookedness that built the City of Gold. This ‘family portrait’ of the infamous brigand and his associates, along with his vellum ‘bokkie’ Peggy (see below), points to a hominoid conundrum—are we the hunters, or the hunted?  ’This is Younge’s forté, to treat history as a story not yet fully told.’
Mark Read, Foreword, Gavin Younge [Cradle Snatcher], 2010.

Peggy. 2010. Vellum, resin cast, bamboo. 180 x 130 x 86 cm (Photo: G. Younge)

For sale through Everard Read Gallery – 011 788 4805 or 021 418 4527

Flight Delayed. 2010. Vellum, oxhide, plywood, styrofoam. 65 x 184 x 55 cm (Photo: G. Younge)

For sale throughEverard Read Gallery – 011 788 4805 or 021 418 4527

Angola was the final horizon over which the terror of South African state militarism appeared. For thousands of young white conscripts, and their African opponents, it was also the scene of catastrophic emotional and physical wounding. Even today, a decade after the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, to say ‘Angola’ is to conjure up a time of pathological, horrific warfare exported to civilian populations, and in most conscripts, a profound, far-reaching guilt about their involvement in genocidal state aggression. Even for the most extreme South African officers, who completed their Angolan service with apparent relish, and for whom crossing the Cunene River was a first step towards later atrocities, Angola was debilitating.

Gavin Younge has concerned himself with the problem of violence and representation for almost two decades. As one of South Africa’s most innovative sculptors, he has explored the traces left by violence in society at large. In our country, it is as though a catastrophic wind has been blowing a long while, and we stand now in the eerie calm after its passing, confronting an endless, sandstone landscape of distorted Aeolian forms. For sculptors like Younge, representing the effects of this mutilating force requires a variety of expressive languages, and an indirectness of approach.- David Bunn.

Excerpt from Prosthesis—Artwork by Gavin Younge the Decade 1997–2007. La Noire Galerie, Paris. 2007, pp. 29–30.