Berni Searle: About to forget

Berni Searle

About to forget

michael stevenson Hill House De Smidt Street Green Point 8005 PO Box 616 Green Point 8051 Cape Town tel +27 (0)21 4212575 fax +27 (0)21 4212578 info@michaelstevenson.com www.michaelstevenson.com

Berni Searle

About to forget

The moment in which one is “about to forget” is also the moment in which one remembers.

As the title of Berni Searle’s exhibition suggests, this work looks at the intermediate space of memory where a sense of return and a sense of loss are simultaneously invoked. The process of forgetting entwines both the presence and absence of memory, and, in between, a series of gradually fading after-images of people and events that linger in the mind.

Searle uses a handful of small black and white photographs of three generations of her family as the point of departure for a metaphoric and poetic reflection on a fractured past.

Grandparents, parents, siblings and friends appear and disappear in the photographs because Searle’s family, like many of its time, was divided by internal schisms around religious differences as well as by contradictory acts of racial classification and reclassification. Over the years, contact between individuals was severed: a matriarch cut off contact with her daughter, sisters were isolated and divided, siblings were separated and only saw each other rarely.

In Searle’s video installation and prints, silhouettes of groups of family members in the photographs, cut out of red crêpe paper, float in warm water. The colour bleeds as the water ebbs and flows, the figures become transparent and residual, and the structured and defined shapes slowly lose their form amidst the swirls of red ink. Our personal associations with this elegiac and enigmatic imagery are myriad.

About to forget 2005, three-channel video projection shot on 35mm cinemascope ďŹ lm, duration 3 minutes, edition of 5 + AP

Still, passing by I 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, series of 10 stills from 35mm cinemascope ďŹ lm, each 20.3 x 48cm, edition of 3 + AP

Still, passing by II 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, series of 10 stills from 35mm cinemascope ďŹ lm, each 20.3 x 48cm, edition of 3 + AP

Under the tree 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 127cm, edition of 3 + AP

Under the tree (traces) 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 127cm, edition of 3 + AP

By the river 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 127cm, edition of 3 + AP

By the river (traces) 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 127cm, edition of 3 + AP

Along the way 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 127cm, edition of 3 + AP

Along the way (traces) 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 127cm, edition of 3 + AP

Friends, between mangroves I 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 127cm, edition of 3 + AP

Friends, between mangroves (traces) I 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 127cm, edition of 3 + AP

Friends, between mangroves II 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 127cm, edition of 3 + AP

Friends, between mangroves (traces) II 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 127cm, edition of 3 + AP

As a child, I remember 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 127 x 100cm, edition of 3 + AP

As a child, I remember (traces) 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 127 x 100cm, edition of 3 + AP

On either side 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 200cm, edition of 3 + AP

On either side (traces) 2005, archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper, 100 x 200cm, edition of 3 + AP

BERNI SEARLE Born 1964. Lives and works in Cape Town Graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1995 with a Master of Arts in Fine Art Solo exhibitions 2005 USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, Florida, USA (November) 2005 BildMuseet, Umeå, Sweden (September) 2005 About to forget, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town 2005 Presence, Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, USA 2004 Vapour, Aardklop Festival invited artist, Potchefstroom 2004 City of London Festival invited artist, Royal Exchange Building, Museum of London, Docklands Museum, London, UK 2004 Vapour, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town 2004 Dis/Colour, Morlan Gallery, Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, USA 2003 – 2004 Float, Standard Bank Young Artist 2003 exhibition, Monument Gallery, Grahamstown; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum, Port Elizabeth; Durban Art Gallery, Durban; South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg 2003 Residency and solo exhibition, Kunst:Raum Sylt-Quelle, Rantum, Sylt, Germany 2003 A Matter of Time, UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California, USA 2002 Berni Searle, Peres Projects, San Francisco, USA 2002 Berni Searle, Seippel Gallery, Cologne, Germany 2001 Still, Axis Gallery, New York, USA 2001 Colour Matters, Kunsthalle Stadgallerie, Osnabrück, Germany 2000 Work produced in residency, Inova (Institute of the Visual Arts) at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA 1999 Colour Me, Mark Coetzee Fine Art Cabinet, Cape Town 1995 Illusions of Identity, Notions of Nationhood, MFA graduate exhibition, Good Hope Gallery, The Castle, Cape Town 1992 Passing Through, work produced in residency, Canberra Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Selected group exhibitions 2005 A Kind of Magic – The Art of Transforming, Museum of Art, Lucerne, Switzerland (August) 2005 Always a Little Further, 51st Venice Biennale, Venice (June) 2004 – 2006 Horizons: Voices from a Global Africa, Museum of World Culture, Göteborg, Sweden 2004 Negotiated Identities, Black Bodies, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg 2004 ‘Dwellan’ – Lingering Images, Charlottenborg Exhibition Hall, Copenhagen, Denmark 2004 5th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Museum, China 2004 Personal Affects: Power and poetics in contemporary South African art, Cathedral of St John the Divine and Museum for African Art, New York, USA 2004 Hang in There, My Dear Geum-Sun, Busan Biennale 2004, Busan Metropolitan Art Museum, Seoul, Korea 2004 Min(e)dfields, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Switzerland 2004 New Identities – Current South African art, Museum Bochum, Germany 2004 Through the Looking Glass, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, and other venues in South Africa 2004 Artes Mundi Shortlisted Artists Exhibition, National Museum and Gallery, Cardiff, Wales 2003 Opzij van het Kijken, Watou Art and Literature Festival, Watou, Germany 2003 NMAC Montenmedio Arte Contemporaneo, Vejer de la Frontera, Spain 2003 Contact Zones: Colonial and contemporary, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town 2003 More than 1000 words, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, USA 2003 The Space Between, Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA 2003 On this side of the sky, Salle des Pas Perdus, Paris, France 2002 The Spice Route, IFA, Stuttgart, Germany 2002 The Field’s Edge: Africa, Diaspora, Lens, USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, Florida, USA 2002 Watching Ocean and Sky Together, Liverpool Biennale event, UK 2002 Familieverhalen uit Zuid Afrika, Tropen Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2002 I.D./OLOGY, Axis Gallery, New York, USA

2002 Tracing the Rainbow, Kunst:Raum Sylt-Quelle, Rantum, Germany; Kulturverein Zehntscheuer, Rottenburg/Neckar Rottenburg, Germany 2002 Fronteras, Espacio C, Santander, Spain 2002 Dislocation, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, Spain; Centro Cultural De Maia, O’Porto, Portugal 2001 Authentic/Ex-centric: Africa in and out of Africa, 49th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy 2001 Encounters with the Contemporary, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC, USA 2001 Dis-Locations, PhotoEspaña 2001, Madrid, Spain 2001 Juncture, The Granary, Cape Town; London, UK 2000 – 2001 A.r.e.a. 2000, Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland 2000 L’Afrique à Jour, Lille, France 2000 Returning the Gaze, Cape Town One City Festival, Cape Town 2000 L’art dans le monde, Paris, France 2000 FNB Vita Art Prize Exhibition, Sandton Civic Gallery, Johannesburg 2000 Artworks for Aids auction, Durban, Washington DC, Brussels, Boston 2000 Dak’Art 2000, Musée d’Art Africain, Dakar, Senegal 2000 Insertion, Apex Gallery, New York, USA 2000 Kwere Kwere: Journeys into Strangeness, The Castle, Cape Town; Gertrude Posel Gallery, Johannesburg; NSA Gallery, Durban 2000 Distinguished Identities: Contemporary African portraiture, Staller Center for the Arts, SUNY at Stoney Brook, New York, USA 2000 Open Studio, work produced in residency at the Gasworks, London, UK 2000 Afrika Portrat, House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany 1999 Staking Claims, The Granary, Cape Town 1999 Towards-Transit: New visual languages in South Africa, De Blaue Saal, Zurich, Switzerland 1999 Postcards from South Africa, Axis Gallery, New York, USA 1999 Lines of Sight: Perspectives on South African photography, South African National Gallery, Cape Town 1999 Emergence, various venues in South Africa 1999 Truth Veils, Gertude Posel Gallery, Johannesburg 1999 Isintu: Ceremony, identity and community, South African National Gallery, Cape Town 1999 Bloodlines/Bloedlyn, Klein Karoo Kunstefees, Oudtshoorn 1998 7th International Cairo Biennale, Cairo, Egypt 1997 Life’s Little Necessities, 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, The Castle, Cape Town 1995 International Exhibition of Art Colleges, Hiroshima, Japan Awards 2004 Artes Mundi Shortlisted Artist 2003 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art 2001 Civitella Ranieri Fellow 2000 FNB Vita Art Prize Finalist 2000 Dak’Art 2000 Minister of Culture Prize 2000 DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Contemporary Art Nominee 1998 Unesco in conjunction with the International Art Critics Association (AICA) Award, 7th International Cairo Biennale

I would like to dedicate this body of work to my mother, Grace Searle, and to the memory of my grandmothers, Gawa Booley and Gertrude Searle.

Acknowledgements Cinematographer, editing and post-production Alberto Iannuzzi Focus puller Dario Paolini Gaffer Bernie de Wet Assistant camera/gaffer/grip Charles Deacon Production manager Cindy Poole Photography for large-scale prints Tony Meintjes I would like to thank my friend Alberto Iannuzzi for being fully involved in this project from beginning to end. I would also like to thank my family, whose support has been constant, and my friends Jaamiah Galant and Shaun Viljoen for always being there.

The photographic knowledge and printing skills of Tony Meintjes of Southern Editions have been invaluable in producing the prints for this exhibition, for which I am grateful. Thanks also to Stanley Edwards from Platypus Productions for his expertise with regard to the video installation.

Having the backing of a gallery with a team of highly motivated and professional people makes all the difference, so I would like to thank Michael Stevenson and his staff for their ongoing support.

Lastly, I’d like to thank Curve Space photographic studios for their exibility.

All print dimensions indicate image size. Large-scale prints have 5cm borders, stills have 3cm borders.

Catalogue no 14 May 2005 Editor Sophie Perryer Scanning Tony Meintjes Printing Hansa Reproprint