First impressions can be confusing, and this was certainly the case at Lindi Arbi’s Masters exhibition entitled Unearthed.
First impressions can be confusing, and this was certainly the case at Lindi Arbi’s Masters exhibition entitled Unearthed.
As you arrived backstage at the Guy Butler Theatre on Saturday evening, you encountered a semi-circle of hot water bottles neatly suspended in four rows. The transparent bottles contained bits and bobs of paper, sand and other objects.
While trying to understand the significance of the hot water bottles, the visitor is disturbed by the rumbling groan of an earthmoving, front-end loader projected onto a large screen on the opposite side of the stage.
In front of the screen, a rectangle entitled Anon. creates a grave-shaped window into the gallery below.
Downstairs, there were even more hot water bottles, six hundred of them, this time cast in clay, hanging on the walls. Some were warped and covered in earth. There were also several free standing sculptures of the artist reduced to a naked, misshapen version of herself and three disconsolate, mummy-like figures.
The story behind Arbi’s exhibition, the practical component of her Masters degree in Fine Art, fell into place when her supervisor, sculpture lecturer Maureen de Jager delivered a poignant clarification of what the art works signify. She eloquently told the large group of visitors how seemingly disparate and disjointed pieces came together for a single cathartic moment revealing Arbi’s efforts to come to terms with the sudden death of her husband nine years ago.
Just like that, the centre of my response to the exhibition descended from bewilderment to a lump in my throat. It all made sense. Arbi created this exhibition as an intrinsic part of her mourning and transition into her redefined self as a widow. An exhumation, laying to rest. The artist used the hot water bottles, each representing another night alone in the conjugal bed, in an attempt to regain, if only for a few fleeting moments, the warmth of her husband whom she loved so dearly.
The long paper printout of her husband’s ECG results, covered with scribbled messages of love and loss, was draped in swirls alongside the display of bottles showing how only a week before his fatal heart attack, the medical profession pronounced his heart to be in good health.
Arbi’s three children are the subjects of the Three Graces sculpture at the centre of the exhibition below the stage. The ragged forms symbolise the devastating consequences of their father’s passing on their prepubescent children.
De Jager’s explanation transformed a mystifying exhibition into a heart rending display of love, yearning and transition.
Does this mean that art has to have an explanation? After all, no one requires an explanation to appreciate Michelangelo’s David or Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, but what about Picasso’s Guernica?
