history/life/language
judith wright, nalini malani, kauro hirabayashi
Among the many treasures in the new Tale Modern Gallery in London, there are two video works that are totally captivating. The first is by South African artist, William Kentridge. Created during the truth and reconciliation hearings, it recounts, from a hospital bed, the dying days of a fictional South African mining magnate. As a team of doctors try to revive his faltering heart, the man reflects on his life. Violent flashbacks suggest a past tainted by brutal exploitation, and every image is a rough, yet moving pencil drawing, animated to form a sequence. The second video installation, also projected onto a large wall, is by the talented English artist Sam Taylor Wood. lt simply documents a young man dancing naked in his flat. The footage is slowed down, and is accompanied by a soundtrack of noises that do not correspond to the movements.
lt may seem an odd leap to make from Kentridge and Wood to a recent exhibition at Monash University Gallery, titled Another Landscape: history/life/language, but the video works of Judith Wright and Nalini Malani shared a similar physicality and sensitivity. Through their depictions of the human body, and the societal roles individuals must play out, Wright and Malani manage to turn personal observation into something with much broader meaning and significance, and herein lies the connection to artists such as Kentridge and Wood.
Curated by Emiko Namikawa in 1998, Another Landscape involved three women artists, Malani, Wright and Kauro Hirabayashi, exhibiting together in various venues within each of their home countries: India, Australia and Japan. Different works were exhibited in each of the different cities and the Melbourne exhibition, which was shown originally at the Institute