Opening speech by Prof Antony Melck | Absa Exhibition 2003

Opening speech by Prof Antony Melck
(Former principal and Vice-chancelor of UNISA)

The Absa Gallery

Exhibition by Erna Bodenstein and Annette Pretorius - 10 April 2003

Ladies and gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to be able to say a few words of introduction to this very interesting exhibition by Erna Bodenstein and Annette Pretorius.

Academic work on art, particularly art history, has come to be dominated by the study of contexts and relationships – between periods; between art and social conditions; between high art and crafts; between the conventions and codes of the time and the purpose of the works themselves; and also between the objects, of which the work is comprised. This has been the case for long. Medieval European art is replete with the religious symbolism of the period, ranging from the insignia of the evangelists to the use of ordinary objects to portray important characteristics or moral values.

After the secularization that accompanied the Renaissance, these symbols were largely amended, amongst other reasons, to reflect the interests of new patrons, but not the technique of using them. To this day, this remains important: whether symbols are used consciously and directly; or appear, on the deconstruction of a work, to be underlying what in fact is only the surface.

I believe this to be important because it undoubtedly plays a role in the works of both artists exhibiting this evening. Erna and Annette were two final year students in a fine arts class of four at the University of Pretoria in 1980; they shared much as students and continue to do so today. They were exposed to the same influences in their student days, yet their works belie this fact. Nevertheless, I would suggest that both incorporate the essential elements of direct and indirect symbolism to which I have referred. Their works require deconstruction to bring this to the fore.

Erna Bodenstein, who is married to Prof Anton Ferreira, director of the Unisa Business School, completed her MA in Fine Arts at the University of Pretoria. She has lectured in printmaking, drawing, and installation art at the University of Pretoria, in Barcelona (Spain) where she has lived periodically, and at the Open Window Academy, Pretoria. She has been honoured at the ‘New Signatures Exhibition’ of the South African Association of Art, has works in several important collections and has exhibited annually since the early 1980s, here and abroad. Since 1990, these have very often been solo exhibitions. Examples of her work are to be found in the collections of the Human Sciences Research Council, the University of Pretoria, Unisa, ABSA and the Pretoria Art Museum inter alia.

Those of you familiar with Erna Bodenstein’s work, will know that for some time she has been fascinated by all aspects feminine. At one of her earlier exhibitions, the speaker, Prof Ronel Rensburg indicated that, at that point, Bodenstein’s works “… view(ed) different facets of female experience, both on the level of inner feelings and in context with the outer world. As such they constitute a layered visual interplay of commentary and parody that is at times nostalgic, intensely sad and shocking. … (Her) representation of femaleness … centres on ways in which to portray the ‘embodied’ and therefore sexually differentiated nature of the female subject, without perpetuating voyeuristic stereotypical and constraining social and cultural idealizations of the female form (as in advertising and the general media).”

A few of the prints from this earlier period are on view this evening. However, Bodenstein has since moved to viewing the body in a broader context, and the female body as the progenitor of all others. In doing so, she depicts the idea that reality is a cultural representation – that perception by the individual is influenced by that person’s culture and social context; furthermore, that society produces ideals of the ‘proper’ body, through encoding its underlying values, in order to define their identities. However, the body’s boundaries are uncertain and can be depicted in various ways; therefore, society’s constructed ideals can be questioned for the myths that they are.

The uncertainty of the body’s boundaries is portrayed in the fascinating collection of images contained in the light boxes. These have been created cleverly with olive oil and cosmetics in a way that allows the oil to seep through the paper over time, during which the boundaries of the work gradually become blurred, and in fact, may even disappear. The impermanent, incomplete nature of our culture’s portrayal of the body has differing consequences, one of which is exploitation through advertising and the media.

The fragility and eventual mortality of the body and its need for periodic medical attention underlies other works. The way, in which this attention is given, is left ambiguous. However, there are references to African mythology, as for example in the painting of Lebo, in which hair-braids at times conceal symbols and create layered references, veiled clues and signs.

Other images convey similar sentiments: a piece of string to outline the body, hybrids and part bodies make the point that identity is open to endless transformation, rather than a conventional stereotype. In total, we are given fascinating insights into these and related issues by the fine collection of works by Erna Bodenstein on display this evening.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to invite you to view, ponder over and enjoy the works on display. May I end by thanking ABSA Gallery for bringing the works of two such fine artists together in one exhibition and by congratulating Erna and Annette on their work.