What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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www.malco.com www.malco.com www.malco.com www.malco.com www.malco.com 6 WHAT'S UP! JANUARY 30-FEBRUARY 5, 2022 "Prism 10 (Dead Laocoön)" was made from cast bronze by Wim Botha in 2014. (Courtesy Photo/Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town/Johannesburg, South Africa) Wim Botha's "Still Life with Water," 2015, was made with wood, bronze, oil paint, glass and fluorescent bulbs. (Courtesy Photo/ Collection of Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, 21c Museum Hotels) soldiers inside to escape and led to Troy's demise. Lesser known, Botha says, is the story of Troy's high priest, who was the sole voice of reason. He spoke against allowing the horse into the city's walls and for it was put to death. Some versions of the story say that his two sons were also executed. "What struck me about the image and the story is something we see over and over again in our world … this idea of having done the right thing according to every measure available, but it might not have been considered the right thing by those who have power over you," he says. With a scapegoat imprisoned on every continent, Botha says, "what makes us human is allowing us to think in a certain way." The work "untitled (bywoner3)," made in 2013, also originated from a series. In it, introspective (all male) portraits allude to the idea of transience with a compelling feature of one or more skulls. A bywoner is similar to a tenant farmer, a person living as the equivalent of a sharecropper, or one who works for their space to live in. This one is a portrait bust made out of encyclopedias and has a skull attached from a point on its chin. Botha enjoyed using encyclopedias as the material, because the books contain the bulk of knowledge accessible to people at that time, which he finds a rich material to create something with. He loves the idea that knowledge lives inside it. Stites says that "untitled (Nebula 9)," a portrait bust Botha made in Carrara marble, is a subversion of what we would expect to see sculpted in precious material since it is defaced. It's name, meaning cloud, came from the way light reflects off the marble surface. Creating a sculpture with marble or bronze carries with it both physical weight and the weight of being tied to tradition. "This is part of the power of it, it's a wonderful thing to play with, the push and pull of meaning," he says. "To use the same material (once) in celebration of some heroism to show something broken or abject … makes a portrait of a psychological space rather than a person." A few works of Botha's "A Thousand Things" series are featured in the exhibition. Botha chose the title of the series to allude to an idea with Chinese origins of 10,000 being a profound number and now often associated with mindfulness. At an early point, the Chinese counting system only went up to 10,000 and then beyond that was simply infinite, he says. "A thousand things 220" is a series of ink bird-like figures on paper, which Botha made in Durham. "Solipsis 10" was also made in Durham, with a tool Stites describes as looking like a crossbow. It features polystyrene white wings, sheets of glass with dichroic film, fluorescent lights and red carpeting. Its name is based loosely on Solipsism, popularized by Decartes' "I think, therefore I am." In this case it portrays realities that we perceive that are only ours or our experience of things, Botha says. Each of his solipsis works is rooted in nature, with a sadness he finds both beautiful and disconcerting. "I find myself, specifically with these, not judging form or forming opinions about its nature as an artwork, just immersing myself into the atmosphere it creates," Botha says. BENTONVILLE 21C Continued From Page 5