Mutants from beyond (The Atlantic)
Acclaimed South African artist Jane Alexander unleashes animal-human hybrids inCAMH show
Jane Alexander, Corporal, 2008, pigment print on cotton paper
Jane Alexander, African Adventure (detail), 1999-?-2002, fiberglass and plastersculptures, earth and found miscellaneous objectsPhoto by Mark Lewis
Jane Alexander, Missing, 2004, pigment print on cotton paper
Jane Alexander, Bom Boys (detail), 1998, fiberglass sculptures, found clothingand fiberboard squares
Jane Alexander, Harbinger with Rainbow, 2004, pigment print on cotton paper
Equal parts disturbing and captivating, Jane Alexander's spooky humanoid creatures have captured the imagination of the international art world since the mid-1980s, when the South African sculptor burst onto the scene with her acclaimed anti-Apartheid piece The Butcher Boys, a trio of life-sized horned beasts sitting uncomfortably on a wooden bench.
Finally, after a prolific four-decade career, Alexander is getting her first solo museum show in the United States, which opens Friday at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) after a successful run at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Swallowing up the middle portio n of the upstairs gallery is Security, a massive rectangular space cordoned off with two chain-link walls topped with razor wire.
Organized by New York's Museum for African Art as it awaits the opening of a new East Harlem facility, Jane Alexander Surveys (from the Cape of Good Hope) offers work from the last 15 years: four large-scale installations, a selection of photos, a video piece and a smattering of free-standing sculptures.
"The show itself works on a number of levels," explained CAMH curator Dean Daderko during a Wednesday tour of the show. "On one side, there's this explicit commentary on politics and society. But there's also this formal aspect that will intrigue people who might be interested in more figurative, classical sculpture."
Swallowing up the middle portion of the upstairs gallery is Security, a massive rectangular space cordoned off with two chain-link walls topped with razor wire. Several bird-like statues hold court inside. Between the pair of fences that surround the central area is an earthen pathway littered with rusted sickles and machetes as well as 1,000 used rubber work gloves.
Situated just to the right of the fence installation is Infantry, an arrangement of more than 20 three-foot high nude male figures. As with the majority of Alexander's beasts, the human forms are topped with animals heads — in this case, from hyenas. Marching in unison atop a red carpet, the little mutants resemble something between the terracotta warriors at the now-defunct Forbidden Gardens in Katy . . . and those hammers in Pink Floyd's The Wall.
The pieces in the show ultima tely expose the fine line between the person and the animal, the orderly civilized world and the cruelty of nature lurking just beneath the surface.
The artist, who helped install her work, has formed clusters of animal-human hybrids throughout the gallery, offering passersby the occasional opportunity to stare directly into the glassy eyes of one of these beast heads, which feature everything from rabbit ears and dog snouts to masks of other South African wildlife.
Daderko noted that while the artist first conceived her creature sculptures as critiques of South African Apartheid, her work in the show speaks to broader concepts of human oppression. The pieces in the show ultimately expose the fine line between the person and the animal, the orderly civilized world and the cruelty of nature lurking just beneath the surface.
“These issues would be particularly accessible to an American audience because of our common histories of discrimination and segregation,” Alexander told the Savannah Morning News in March, “and the continued presence of and the lack of resolution of their legacy.”
Jane Alexander: Surveys (From the Cape of Good Hope) starts Friday at the CAMH with an opening reception from 7 to 9 p.m. with food from Ladybird Food Truck and Goodie Box, music by DJ Melodic and a cash bar by Grand Prize. The show will be on view through Nov. 4.
