VIRAL IMAGES
asoloexhibition byJohandidu Plessis
24 November 2022 - 12 February 2023 • Oliewenhuis Art Museum
Oliewenhuis Art Museum is excited to showcase VIRAL IMAGES, a solo exhibition by emerging conceptual artist and researcher, Johandi du Plessis, from 24 November to 12 February 2023. Du Plessis is based in Bloemfontein in the Free State, where she teaches across and between various mediums such as drawing, painting, sculpture and installation and digital-based art at the DepartmentofFine Arts at the University ofthe FreeState. She receivedher Bachelor'sdegreein Fine Arts in 2014 at the same institution. Du Plessis has participated in over forty local and internationalexhibitionsthat include theprestigiousart competitionSasol New Signatures (2021, 2019, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2013), the Absa !'Atelier, NIROX Sculpture Park's 'Good Neighbours' exhibition, and UJ's FADA exhibition 'Booknesses'. In 2016 she was selected as one offourteen ofSouth Africa's most promising emerging artists to partake in the experimental and interdisciplinary OPENLab Arts Residency held at MAPSA, Richmond in the Northern Cape, presentedby theProgrammeforInnovationinArtform Development(PIAO). Sheisrecipientofa grant from the Claire and Edoardo Villa Will Trust, and her artworks are held in the DAC and MAPSAcollections.
Title:insight:intoandoutsidethescreen
Medium: Silver-based C-type printon metallic glosspaper, Diasec mounting. Some elements contained andinteractedwith: laptop; mobilephone; liquidcrystalglass; dust; hair; Covid-19 pandemic; lockdown; digital images; fake news; the internet; online; offline; fingerprints and their erasures; sunlight; blue Free Statesky; reflections; distortions; shadows; theconfinesofmyhouse
Dimensions: 590x835mm
Du Plessis moves between and experiments with diverse mediums and materials, such as installation, sculpture, drawing, painting, digital-based mediums and popular image forms like GIFs. However, she is by no means bound to these mediums since she is continuously open to experimentation. She experiences the studio as a transformative space and imagination's chamber where the experimentation with materials, technology and tools in unforeseen ways often result in chance encounters. In her art practise, she intermixes image theory, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and media theory. The artist draws inspirationfrom an array ofimages that include images from various domains such as art, graphic design, public relations and marketing, andstateandcorporaterepresentations.
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Title: Cat study (conceptualized between 2020-2022, with objects collected over many years)
Medium: Mixed-media installation including found and altered objects: cat objects, toys, trinkets, figurines, ornaments, cat hairball and cat fur; cat skulls; wooden desks, and chairs
Dimensions: 740 x 5 350 x 5 600mm
Photos credit: Rian Horn
Drawing from her interest in the notion that images do not 'exist', but take place 1 , Du Plessis presents an exhibition of a body of artworks that beckons questions about the nature and characteristics of images, as they are hosted in a variety of artistic media. Many of the artworks engage with the idea of social imaginaries, that is, the many ways in which we imagine ourselves through the images or ideas we carry within our bodies, and that we express them in pictures, stories, and legends2 . Du Plessis observes how images influence the way in which we imagine ourselvestobeintimeandplace.
Thus, sheasks: Do images have social lives?The ideathatanimagehasthepotentialtogo'viral'on various platforms is not entirely new, but images become ever more proliferated globally due to technological advances and online social networks. Images are continually and increasingly appropriated and transitioning. The artworks on exhibition exploit the metaphor of the "housecat", themost popularanimal meme on the internet, to evoke the viral potential of images to suddenly leapandget out ofcontrol. Inthisway, images may seem toacquire lives oftheir own and have agency. The contradiction of a domestic cat that cannot be fully contained or tamed has been observed throughout history, and for Du Plessis points to images' paradoxical and ambiguous qualities. Images, like cats, may seem as if they could shapeshift when they contort their bodies in order to escape confinement or our control. Images may even, like felines stalk, surprise, and frighten us. Some artworks exhibited suggest memes, also referred to as "cat pictures", which are understood as being "viral" on online socialnetworks. The cat metaphor is made more apparent in some artworks, such as the installation Cat study (2020-2022) and the interactive and performative installation playing dead LOL (2020-2022). In other artworks, the metaphorislessapparent, butsubtly sitswithpotentialcat-likeenergy.
Du Plessiscomparesthewaysinwhichaseemingly deadcatcansuddenly andunpredictably jump erratically and playfully, to the way in which images leap, almost by chance sometimes. The artist canalso playfully andunpredictably shiftbetweenmediums, materials andconceptsthat generate diverse artworks. The media include sculpture; installation; digital drawing and painting; digital interventions; GIF-based animations; and cell phone and pinhole photography. Some of the artworkshavemovingcomponentsaswellassonicelements. Thematerialsusedand
Hans Belting(inAnanthropologyofimages: picture, medium, body(2005, page32). Chicago: The UniversityofChicago Press)and Gottfried Boehm(inthe bookIconicpower: materialityandmeaninginsociallife (2012, pages 15-24). NewYork: PalgraveMacMillian). The philosopher Charles Taylor in his 2004 book Modern social imaginaries (page 23). Durham: Duke University Press.appropriated vary from traditional to alternative to banal, such as plaster of paris, oil paint, and everyday 'found objects' from charity shops, to ordinary commercial products. Although conceptualordigital, theartworksremainsensitivetotheirmateriality. Someoftheartworksmay betouched, pickedupandplayedwith.
In politics, the expression "dead-cat-strategies" suggests that images may be controlled, or managed, like dead cats, as was attempted by the (now defunct) British PRfirm Bell Pottinger to aid in capturing of the South African state by spreading disinformation. However, the artist believes that images are in reality enigmatic and mysterious like live cats by nature and that they undermine, challenge and problematize any attempts at 'image management' as part ofdiversion strategies. The artworks exhibited here exploit the cat metaphor in terms of image theory because, since images migrate among various objects, places, and social domains, they cut through and reveal the economic, cultural, political, and psychological fibres of society. Most of the works probe image clashes that have been provoked by the social, political and/or economic disruptionsandchangesexperiencedinpost-apartheid SouthAfrica.
Du Plessisbelievesthatimagesandthenostalgicandhumorousimageclashesthatsheobservesin post-apartheid South Africa reveal collective intergenerational trauma, anxiety, and diverse experiences of loss. Some artworks, comparable to memes, respond to the way in which nostalgia and humour are employed to mitigate anxiety, loss, and desire. Topical viral events are explored, andsomeartworksresultfromacontinuedfascinationwithandinterrogationofimages and their spread throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and the online/offline experiences during lockdown.
Title: playing dead LOL (2020-2022)
Medium: Performative and interactive fake suck-on plastic bricks, rolling and laughing cat toys, oil paint
Dimensions: Variable
Photo credit: Rian Horn
Title: FOAF (A friend ofa friend told me,,.) (2020-)
Medium: GIF-based animation (online and offline)
Dimensions: Variable
Photos credit: Rian Horn
