19th November – 27th January.
White Cube: 48 Hoxton Square, London N1 SPB
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am – 6pm,
This latest offering from Rachel Kneebone demonstrates how there can be fluidity in solidity, eroticism in death, and delicacy in the grotesque. These porcelain sculptures, inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphosis, reveal to us the ultimate fragility of mortal bodies and remind us that stability of form is a comfortable illusion.
On the ground floor, there are eight sculptures on raised cylindrical plinths, and on the first floor a series of six sculptures occupy two walls, while the third wall is adorned with nine pencil drawings. We are confronted by immensely detailed depictions, in glazed white porcelain, of human bodies, body parts and plant and animal life, all intertwined in tangles, contorted in pain or ecstasy, different organic forms merging into a unified mass. The pencil drawings serve as studies for the sculptures and by that token are more obscure and less impressive. The sculptures derive their effect from the rendering of ideas in the material, which is lost in the drawings so that they seem pale wall-fillers.
At first glance, you don’t really notice either the complexity or the vulgarity of these works, and so you do not immediately apprehend what is shocking about them. The first thing you notice is the intricacy of the sculpting and the shine of the glaze; the depicted forms are initially difficult to discern, due to the uniform white, but reveal themselves on closer inspection. Looking closer, from different angles, the penises, legs, vaginas and arms reveal themselves and the mastery of these works begins to unfold.
That the body parts are connected in surprising ways creates an element of intrigue that keeps us looking for hours: from within the chaotic mass of porcelain we begin to see penises with legs and vaginas embedded in arms. The slow drip of the way in which these images unfold gives the work a tension, an irresistible intensity that grabs our attention. This visual complexity presents a scene of great obscenity, which is softened by the fact that it is made from the same material as the finest tea sets; the sculptures present the grotesque in delicate forms and refined materials so that the anguish of tragedy and the fear of uncertainty are softened.
There is a subtlety to it that at once deceives and reveals, which gives rise to a whole host of contradictions in the work. In the piece In the midst of quietness branched thoughts murmur, for example, what appear to be interpretations of classical archways turn out to be flayed vaginas on contorted legs. The static structures of the temples Ovid was familiar with are contrasted with the movable structure of the female form. The fragility of the porcelain details are contrasted with the solid bases of slabs on which they are set, and even the robust masculinity of the erect penises are set in counterpoint to the spindly legs on which they stand.
One of the major triumphs of Lamentations 2010 is that Rachel Kneebone uses it to deconstruct the nature of sculpture. Sculpture often presents us with classical figures striking a pose, busts of state leaders at a moment in time and abstract forms standing still in space. That is, sculpture is often an art of stillness, but here in these works we get the impression of things in motion, of writhing, desperate attempts to escape and to invade. These forms before us are natural forms that move organically out of necessity and visceral instinct, and yet they are petrified in porcelain, as if Kneebone has fossilised them in the middle of their existential struggle. Here, sculpture is representing a process that has been arrested but which always seems to be fighting that cessation. Moreover, the process here is not just of life, but also one of death, of decay, where some forms are fighting for their last breath or trying to will themselves back to life as the hero ill-fated hero of a tragedy might.
The work brings home two uncomfortable facts of life. Firstly, the delicacy of porcelain, exemplified in the sheer complexity of the forms, reminds us that our mortal bodies are ultimately fragile. The choice of material is crucial to the work’s exploration of the idea that we are composed of breakable matter that can be damaged by both itself and things external to it. Secondly, the melding of different body parts suggests that, given nature is in a constant state of flux, stability – physical, psychological and conceptual – is a mere illusion. The work, however, shows us why that illusion is so comfortable – it protects us from realising how organic matter can be violently, grotesquely erotic.
The eroticism of this work is the locus of its intellectual power because it reflects back at us the animal nature that we might prefer to suppress. It compels us to consider how we are controlled by our sexual impulses, it forces us to confront the temporary nature of our being, and it renders these vile insights with such skill that the grotesque becomes unsettlingly decorative. This exhibition makes us reconsider both the nature of sculpture as decorative or stationary and our place in the natural world as so much organic matter thinking we are elevated beyond our animal nature. Lamentations 2010 will make you think, about art and life, yourself and others, but it will also give your senses something to delight in, which is the most we can ask of contemporary art.
