Surely everyone who frequents galleries has had this experience: You're wandering round an exhibition that you don't really care for, your scepticism slowly rising. You're not sure if you're missing something or if there's nothing to miss, but every time you're confronted with another indifferent picture with an obscure title you care a little less.
Then you come across something that stops you in your tracks, something that announces its greatness and makes you take your time to consider it. Zarina Bhimji's recent exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery had this exact effect on me. As you enter you are presented with a series of stills from her latest film. Anyone who has had the misfortune of sitting through my holiday snaps knows my predilection for shots of urban decay ("When are we getting to the Pyramids?" "After the two rolls of film I took at the cement factory.") but when coupled with portentous titles of little discernible relevance my guard was up.
Upstairs, the samples of earlier work manage to achieve the unhappy balance of seeming both facile and obscure, with a tedious insistence on poking sexuality into every orifice, even those where it doesn't belong. Does a photograph of some spray painted pubes really complete an exhibit of photographs of gardens owned by slave merchants, and mirrors engraved with old press cuttings of slave auctions?
Upstairs, the samples of earlier work manage to achieve the unhappy balance of seeming both facile and obscure, with a tedious insistence on poking sexuality into every orifice, even those where it doesn't belong. Does a photograph of some spray painted pubes really complete an exhibit of photographs of gardens owned by slave merchants, and mirrors engraved with old press cuttings of slave auctions?
It's understandable, then, that I approached the centrepiece of the exhibition, a new film called 'Yellow Patch', with some hesitation. I am not against Video Art, yet only a few of its practitioners seem to approach competency in my eyes, and a previous work by the artist shown upstairs had all the clumsy literalness of an overexcited student documentary maker.
Luckily this film captivated me within a few seconds, such was its beauty. It's a cliché to say that each frame could be a work of art in itself, but the photos outside testified to its truth in this case. Each shot, whether of mouldering books in dusty courtrooms or houses filled with ruined furniture slowly collapsing, was ravishingly beautiful. When I went to see it a second time, an entire class of 5-year-olds sat transfixed throughout its entire 30 minutes runtime, without making a peep. Credit has to go to the cinematographer for composing such beautiful shots, as well as moving the camera so precisely, slowly, and gracefully.
Luckily this film captivated me within a few seconds, such was its beauty. It's a cliché to say that each frame could be a work of art in itself, but the photos outside testified to its truth in this case. Each shot, whether of mouldering books in dusty courtrooms or houses filled with ruined furniture slowly collapsing, was ravishingly beautiful. When I went to see it a second time, an entire class of 5-year-olds sat transfixed throughout its entire 30 minutes runtime, without making a peep. Credit has to go to the cinematographer for composing such beautiful shots, as well as moving the camera so precisely, slowly, and gracefully.
It is this movement, of course, which distinguishes film from most other art forms. By introducing movement, film introduces time, and for me this is what this piece is really about. Bhimji's work is often discussed in terms of migration and post-colonialism, and there are indeed echoes of that. All the main locations which are so forensically investigated are in India, and each bear some echo of migration. Sunken ships have been used as a migration metaphor before, as you'll see if you visit the exhibition on at Tate minor now. A mutilated statue of Queen Victoria is pored over in great detail. The camera also often comes to rest on English letters, now devoid of all meaning. The soundtrack features a Babel of different voices, presumably saying something which once had import, or drops into cricket commentary.
The cricket is important, for me, as sport is one of the purest examples of the way humans give meaning to arbitrary events. I feel that this film, rather than being about migration per se, is about the unimportance of it in the long time. It is about the way that meaning drains out over time. Sheaves and sheaves of court papers lie forgotten and rotting. All the objects which were once so important have become abstract over time. History involves giving meaning to events, making a story about what happened and why. Why one people conquered another, why some fled to a different country. Yet even this is a remove from the deeply felt meaning of those who live that experience, and as time goes on and the stories retreat to the past, the number who comprehend will get fewer and their understanding will grow dimmer. When the last human winks out, gone too will be any meaning that these objects once held.
Sometimes as the camera moved a low rumbling filled the soundtrack, sounding, if you'll let me be so fanciful, like the grinding of history itself, or the plate tectonics of geological time. This geological metaphor is repeated in the zigzagging cracks of the walls. In these terms man is but a speck of light, soon to be dust, and all our concerns are but naught.
At times, then, the film seems to be about uncaring nature versus the transitory being of man. Plants have invaded their once grand palaces, spiders' webs gently dance in the breeze. Dogs yawn and skulk the empty streets. Shots of desolate deserts show a nature inhospitable to man, one we are no more at home in than spiky bushes clawing thirstily at the cracked earth. We hold on tenaciously, but it is only a matter of time before we pass on.
At times, then, the film seems to be about uncaring nature versus the transitory being of man. Plants have invaded their once grand palaces, spiders' webs gently dance in the breeze. Dogs yawn and skulk the empty streets. Shots of desolate deserts show a nature inhospitable to man, one we are no more at home in than spiky bushes clawing thirstily at the cracked earth. We hold on tenaciously, but it is only a matter of time before we pass on.
I think this film, then, gains from being considered as a type of Still Life. The Still Life in the Northern European tradition was often used as a Vanitas - a reminder of the transient nature of life. Whilst this piece is clearly no longer still, it fits well with what the French call Still Life: nature morte. Indeed, most Romance and Slavic languages refer to the genre as dead nature, and in this piece only ghosts and echoes remain of the lives that once gave purpose to the objects depicted.
There is one, brief shot of a human though. A close up of a woman's back shows the folds and colours of her sari as if they were an abstract, a single wisp of blonde hair speaks of themes of miscegenation. Immediately after, she is contrasted with a peacock. Speaking as someone who kept peacocks as pets when I was a child, an animal more stupid and vain could not be found, caring, as it does, for nothing so much as its own reflection.
Are we, though, hopelessly fascinated by our own time and its cultural ephemera, really so different when viewed on a grand scale? After all, as Yellow Patch reminds us, 'In the long run we are all dead.'
There is one, brief shot of a human though. A close up of a woman's back shows the folds and colours of her sari as if they were an abstract, a single wisp of blonde hair speaks of themes of miscegenation. Immediately after, she is contrasted with a peacock. Speaking as someone who kept peacocks as pets when I was a child, an animal more stupid and vain could not be found, caring, as it does, for nothing so much as its own reflection.
Are we, though, hopelessly fascinated by our own time and its cultural ephemera, really so different when viewed on a grand scale? After all, as Yellow Patch reminds us, 'In the long run we are all dead.'