Since the opening
last Friday, of Tania Kovats’s exhibition at Hestercome it seems to have done
nothing but rain! Let’s hope the exhibition titled ‘Oceans’ that comprises 365
bottles of donated sea water, sculptural reefs, atlases and other works that
both explore, document and use water as both source and material for the work
is not prophetic of things to come!
Oddly for me, the more representational works in the exhibition are the ones which fall flat in having less to say, ‘Reef 1’ (2014) and ‘Reef 2’ (2014) are two sculptures made from barnacles covered in gesso. They are more obvious in their connection to the sea and are actually more static and heavy than the fluidity of the ink drawings and other sculptural works which have something more of a process or ‘moment in time’ to them; this can also be felt in the series of sculptures titled ‘Schist’ (2001) whereby wax is layered and compressed by lead shot into arched folds mimetic of tectonic plates. Although now hardened they retain a 'molten', soft appearance to them which bizarrely, feels more close to nature than the actual natural object of the barnacles. In a separate room a third sculptural style ‘Tilted’ (2002) is a cast rocky interior hidden inside a contrasting modern, flat architectural, plinth-like exterior. They are a little reminiscent of Mariele Neudecker's mountainscape/forms in mist-shrouded vitrines, but I'm not dwelling too much on that its just interesting if you like these works and want to find an artist who is similar.
**http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/drawing-water-by-tania-kovats.html
*** Photo courtesy of Sara Dudman
I find it exciting
(not to mention an incredible opportunity for Taunton) that Kovats has been
chosen to be the second exhibition at the recently opened Hestercombe House,
Somerset. The debut show, ‘Leaping the Fence’ opened in May 2014* and exhibited
the work of sixteen contemporary artists from Mark Wallinger to Mike Nelson.
Kovats (who also had a piece in that first exhibition) is the first artist to
have a solo show here which includes a new piece, ‘Sea Mark for Hestercombe’
(2014) above the staircase and entrance hall as well as bringing together
previous work(s) from the exhibition ‘Drawing Water’ shown recently at The
Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh. (Regular readers will note that I wrote about
the book which accompanied that exhibition in a previous blog post.**)
There are two aspects
of Kovats’s work in particular that I’m glad have been presented into the show
at Hestercombe. The first being an emphasis on the importance of drawing in
Kovats’s practice; where drawing is used as a means of exploration,
investigation, documentation, measurement, action – consequence –the passing of
time. In ‘Oceans’ the first thing that hits you on the impressive stairway is a
drawing or wall work of tiled, inky brushstrokes that intermediate horizontally
disappearing into an imaginary horizon like a series of puddles or
clouds. Could they also be islands? Or tide marks? A similar piece in another
room later reveals that the marks to be the broken surface of the sea, ‘the wet
marks originally made on the tiles were dried and were fired and return to
their fluid origins, glossy and liquid’. Despite learning this, they remain
ambiguously still quite abstract, quite meditative. Elsewhere there are
multiple drawings made from evaporated sea salt water and ink on blotting
paper. They’re exploratory and alchemic in their seemingly simple curiosity of,
‘what happens when I put this together with that and let time pass. It produces
spontaneous, seemingly effortless, often beautiful (if I may state my personal
opinion) and uncontrived results. For Kovats, perhaps this method of drawing
which relies less on the ‘hand of the artist’ and more on the passing of time,
is a more authentic reflection of nature and properties of the sea water. In
her words,
“I
let a drawing make itself. I am not drawing anything but the drawing...in other
drawings the ink retains its fluidity and floods the paper...echoing the
movements and forms of water in nature.”
'Sea Mark for Hestercombe' (2014)
Tania Kovats ***
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The second aspect
brought from Edinburgh to Hestercombe is in the presentation of a variety of
works that allows for multiple meanings on the same theme. I shall explain,
‘Drawing Water’ presented work from map-makers, writers, shipbuilders,
whalers, soldiers, sailors, artists, archaeologists, cartographers, scientists,
uranographers (mapping stars), engineers and dreamers all of whom have
used drawing as a way of searching, understanding and looking at water and our
use/connection to it. In ‘Oceans’ we see how that influence has filtered
(pardon the pun) into different sides of Kovats’s practice; from the drawing
based works previously mentioned, to the sculptural and participatory nature of
the piece 'All the sea'. The following quote taken from ‘Drawing Water’ by
archaeologist Colin Renfrew reiterates this cross-over and shift in
contemporary visual arts practice,
“Over
the past century or so the visual arts have transformed themselves from their
preoccupation with beauty and the representation of the world into something
much more radical...into what might be described as a vast, uncoordinated yet
somehow enormously effective research programme that looks critically at what
we are and how we know what we are.”
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'All the sea' (2012-14) Tania Kovats
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In ‘All the Sea’
(2012-14) 365 bottles of seawater have been collected and sent to the artist
from individuals all around the world forming a library of seas all gathered in
one place. It is a little bit reminiscent of Susan Hiller’s ‘Homage to Joseph
Beuys’ (1969-2011) in which the artist collected antique bottles filled with
holy water from around the world. If I may be bold, I actually prefer that
piece aesthetically and can’t really ignore it for being so similar to Kovats’s
piece to avoid mention. In some aspects, what Hiller did for holy
water, Kovats is doing for oceans and what is striking about both is away from
the 'labels'/ideas we surround them with they’re both essentially still,
water. The water in ‘All the sea’ mostly looks the same (except for the very
obvious, if alarming, yellow North Sea and subtle variations in sediment colour
in others) and in being contained Kovats doesn’t seem to be trying to present
the vastness or power of oceans, in a sublime sense (these are not huge
gestural paintings) but the preciousness of it, it’s very sameness in relatively
modest, clinical/functional plain looking bottles, more personal and
more controlled. Inadvertently though they create an awareness of the
scale of oceans not by being different, but by being many. This statement of
unity, for me, is representative of the water cycle as a whole, the idea being
that tomorrow’s dirty dishwater is eventually someone else’s rain. They cannot
be pigeon holed into having one preferred reading, like Hiller’s more
pilgrimage/spiritual based piece. Kovats’s waters are not her own, they have
their own stories, that largely remain anonymous. Mischievously too,
I still wonder if anyone was tempted to sneak their bath water in there
somewhere claiming it was sea....
‘Where Seas Meet,
North: Baltic & Tasman: Pacific’ (2013-14) is another example where two sea
waters inhabit separate vessels but also connect via a pipe at the top, in the
undistinguishable similarities between the two seas it highlights or reminds us
that the fabrication of boundaries, as a way of mapping/controlling oceans, is
man-made idea. The mapping theme, neatly ‘flows’ into another work in the
exhibition, ‘Only Blue’ (2013) which uses obsolete Atlases, laid open on four
tables with their landmasses erased under white paint so all that remains is
the blue of the sea. In the same way it is much easier to understand the
physicality of sky based on where it meets the horizon, where it meets the
land, a tree, a hill, a mountaintop, plane or bird; the same can be said of
oceans/water and we can only comprehend their vastness by the relationship to
the land or containers that surround them. Or at least so I speculate. ‘Only
Blue’ makes one aware of the oceans more as a physical space, as to a temporal
one that links landmass. It’s like when you’re learning to draw you learn to
draw negative space between objects as to the positive, solid object itself.
Oddly for me, the more representational works in the exhibition are the ones which fall flat in having less to say, ‘Reef 1’ (2014) and ‘Reef 2’ (2014) are two sculptures made from barnacles covered in gesso. They are more obvious in their connection to the sea and are actually more static and heavy than the fluidity of the ink drawings and other sculptural works which have something more of a process or ‘moment in time’ to them; this can also be felt in the series of sculptures titled ‘Schist’ (2001) whereby wax is layered and compressed by lead shot into arched folds mimetic of tectonic plates. Although now hardened they retain a 'molten', soft appearance to them which bizarrely, feels more close to nature than the actual natural object of the barnacles. In a separate room a third sculptural style ‘Tilted’ (2002) is a cast rocky interior hidden inside a contrasting modern, flat architectural, plinth-like exterior. They are a little reminiscent of Mariele Neudecker's mountainscape/forms in mist-shrouded vitrines, but I'm not dwelling too much on that its just interesting if you like these works and want to find an artist who is similar.
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'Schist' (2001) Tania Kovats
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It is really
rewarding to see a solo exhibition at Hestercombe that has so many different
approaches to exploring its central theme. Kovats's practice is coherently
diverse and I enjoyed experiencing each of her works individually in rooms
but also together as a whole show. The whole thing was 'more digestible'
as someone put to me, which I think was pretty apt.
I
left having spent the evening of the private view in the greatest
of company and felt enthused that more people should know and
experience this exhibition, later I also wondered if
Kovats has paid our Hydrographic office a visit and vice versa...? It seems as
though the two are connected.
“Water
is the element of connection.....that any action however small is connected to
every other action and sends a ripple out into everywhere.”
Tania
Kovats 'Oceans' is on at Hestercombe until January 11th 2015
Visit:
http://www.hestercombe.com/whats-on/events-and-activities/181-tania-kovat-s-oceans/event_details
Further reading:
*http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/look-if-you-like-but-you-will-have-to.html
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