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Michèlle Fuirer
reviewer (visual arts), U.K.
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Gallery as Tabula Rasa
Review of a site specific installation by Karnik
at the Cafe Gallery, London, U.K.
by Michèlle Fuirer, U.K.
In the Cafe Gallery, in Southwark Park in Bermondsey, London,
Karnik's work is at the centre of an oasis of mature trees, a rose garden,
shrubs and expanse
of grass, amidst which a shifting population of dog walkers, meandering
school children, rooks and small rodents wander. If a unique fit between a
space and its content is primary to the definition of site specific work,
then this exhibition goes further, making a fit between the work, the
gallery and the gallery's location, connecting all three in a web of
intriguing complexity. If the plain gallery space
represents a tabula rasa,
any work which sets out to be site specific needs to inscribe itself onto
the space in no uncertain terms.
A guide to the exhibition, rather, a map for our tour of
the site, contained in handmade paper carrier, was given to
each visitor. It was in the form of a floor plan, labelled with zones or areas. These zones are
seemingly parts of a disconnected narrative: 'the pull of
the city', 'no way out', 'just in case', 'parking area',
'pool line', 'too shy to spy', 'both points of view'.
Like an index to a map, the names stimulate the
imagination, but signify nothing until we have visited the place.
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Detail of the site specific installation,
Tabula Rasa by Karnik,
Cafe Gallery, London, U.K. 1998.
(The shadowy figure is Karnik)
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pull of the city
and points of view
detail of Tabula Rasa, installation
by Karnik in Cafe Gallery, London, U.K.
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Karnik has made a series of highly charged, playful, interconnected site
specific works. Debris, ephemera, leftovers, scraps and scrapings, dirt and
pigment, carrier bags and cheap paper, have been installed in the gallery
space in various guises. Striding paper figures, bird forms,
dogs, shadows, ropes and lines range through the space.
Karnik's work readily makes visible the physical act of drawing, of
inscribing and carving lines, of cutting or tearing, of making pigment and
paper malleable. Drawings originate from marks made by
stain or blot, or use
wire or tape to describe lines in space. In improvising
from materials ready to hand, or transforming found
materials, the artist suggests the process is
akin to the mental act of sifting through stores of information, drawing
upon the conscious and unconscious alike. In spite of what the chosen
materials may suggest, the process operates far more by design than by
accident. Each work in the exhibition connects, both to site and to each
other, juxtaposition and coincidence is carefully contrived to make an
ensemble.
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'Just in case' is encountered on the way in: a line of open umbrellas are
strung up above the path to the front door. Swinging
jauntily in the breeze,
or flapping in more violent gusts, they behave generally like a flock of
animated crows, guiding or maybe guarding the way in.
In 'parking area': a pair of truncated parking meters on a plinth is
attached by rope to a drawing stuck on a low trolley. The
drawing represents
a dark, splatter shaped beast in whose extended paw there is a fly swatter.
A place to abandon, punish or simply park up your pet in
the city, perhaps?
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Just in case
detail of Tabula Rasa, installation
by Karnik in Cafe Gallery, London, U.K.
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Cage in search of a bird
detail of Tabula Rasa, installation
by Karnik in Cafe Gallery, London, U.K.
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Opposite, in 'a cage in search of a bird', a dead blackbird is hunched in a
chrome cage. Next to it, simply pinned to the wall, is another bird. Dry,
wizened, miniature, every fine detail of its feathers and
talons take on the
quality of a soft drawing. Alongside, some frenzied and
heavily gouged marks in the plaster have struck through to
the bricks beneath. The text ' cage
in search of a bird' is scored into the wall. This scratching is an
intrusion: the skin of the building has been pierced. The suggestion of
pain, rage, frustration, or of the desire to despoil, to break open or
rupture the surface, suggests a mischievous willfulness that could be
dangerous to know.
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It is significant that Karnik's work has also been made in book format. In
intensely worked notebooks, marks and text cross over, are crossed out and
re-drawn. These books endure several years of making and
remaking. they grow
heavier and expand - the burying and retrieval of many images and stories
takes place. In the intimate form of the book, each page has to work within
a whole - and yet can only be viewed one side at a time, and logically by
one person. In the exhibition, her drawings are hung in space exposing each
side of the paper to view.
The observer can move through and around the work, and also
touch. The visitor becomes an investigator. A discretely placed spy hole cut through a
partition wall gives a round view onto 'the pull of the
city'.
'The pull of the city' is peopled by figures made from dress shirt fronts,
yellowed and glazed from years of starching. Slender, paper
tape legs anchor
the figures to the floor some hold onto paper or line.
Balanced with humour,
there is a mournful undertow present here which seems to connect with the
idea of the city as a place of lost souls, who, made of the very stuff with
which they are surrounded have become one with the flotsam and jetsam. Mute
birds and daft dogs are the travelling companions. A battered portfolio
mounted on a pulley invites us to give its handle a tug, this action
activates a drawing to move in the opposite direction on
the line above. The
drawing represents a blurred, bent figure, carrying a case.
'Pool line' has been made by hacking away the dense undergrowth which
previously shrouded the rear window of the gallery. The
viewer is drawn away
from the stage set of the space, to a framed view on the world outside. A
blue nylon rope, passing through the window, is looped along the bushes and
traces the sight line of the viewer's gaze. Part of a disused swimming pool
can be identified by a corner of faded azure tiles amongst a mass of dark
bushes. To reveal an abandoned pleasure ground contained in a mini forest
has become an act of poignancy, hinting at myths, legends and fairy tales
whose messages are somewhat obscure, but often contain the notion of
salvation from threat or danger.
In a parallel piece set in a small alcove, there is
literally 'no way out'.
Three small windows set high in the wall have been framed with ornate, gold
picture frames. The picture / window offers no view outwards. Instead,
matted branches and leaves push up against the glass in a dense screen,
shutting out both light and sky. In the corner of one
window is a bird's
nest worn smooth by use, but empty. Therefore, in symmetry
to 'pool line',
where we cast a view from inside out, here, the outside presses in and
becomes one with the inside. The artist uses the site
itself and its windows as alternatively, a shutter to
exclude, or an iris to focus an image for the
eye. The places the artist constructs, as in fairy tales and myths, can be
both safe and unsafe; forests which tangle up and conceal, or forests which
open out and create a magical new world.
At one level the work suggests a reading of containment and repression,
encasing the microcosm of the artist's world within the gallery, and then
within the macrocosm of the park in the network of the city. A series of
concentric circles of meaning embedded within each other seem to place the
observer at the centre of the experience.
Making my journey back through the park to the noisy thoroughfare of
London's transport system I retained the borrowed vision of Karnik and her
work. What I looked at appeared in a different guise. The black beaked
rooks, the fallen leaves pasted into the path and the criss cross patterns
of branches held the imprint in my mind's eye of Karnik's strange works.
Karnik lives and works in Berlin and London. She is currently based in
London. Michelle Fuirer is an artist and member of the
Bermondsey Artist's Group. The Cafe Gallery has recently been successful in a bid to the
National Lottery fund and will close for one year for refurbishment.
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