Lizamore@Clairvaux presents Hide & Seek, a group sculpture exhibition curated by Teresa Lizamore. This exhibition kicks-off the summer season at the Clairvaux estate located in Robertson in the Western Cape.
Considering sculpture and the aim with the placement of sculpture in any space is to highlight and flatter the sculptural qualities and the environment’s qualities and/or natural beauty. By viewing a sculpture in a natural environment, one is able to highlight elements of the sculpture like material (surface, colour, texture) and space (line, form, volume, openings, frames and focus). Sculpture by its very nature must relate or be read in relation to everything around it, both the landscape or backdrop and the changes in the landscape it creates. This is an active relationship between viewer, sculpture and environment. Considering the surroundings must be an ongoing effort; a sense of an interactive space which responds to its environment is critical to developing the engagement by the audience. Gardens and sculptures become equal partners in creating a new living environment for the viewer; this is completely opposite to the idea of a clean, white cube gallery. The contained sculpture garden at Lizamore@Clairvaux provides a backdrop for the sculptural works with a single entrance to the garden, three-layered platforms of green grass and a vine covered wall surrounding it.
In understanding Carl Andre’s bold statement, ‘The function of the sculpture consists of seizing and occupying the space’, the exhibition, titled Hide & Seek, looks to highlight this interplay between the natural environment and the sculptural pieces. Unlike site-specific pieces which look to blend and compliment the environment, this curated exhibition looks to challenge and reject its natural surroundings by demanding its own spatial understanding.
The artists selected for this exhibition do just this; their use of material and/or form disrupts the well-manicured ‘garden’ with fun, quirky and often surreal forms. These forms seem to reveal or conceal themselves to the viewer, disrupting the visual landscape and the viewer’s expectations. This alters the space and transforms it, emphasizing both the sculptural object and the environment’s unsuspected peculiarities.
Participating artists include Cobus Haupt, Frank van Reenen, Mark Swart, Jaco Sieberhagen, Sam Allerton, Gregg Price, Strijdom Van Der Merwe, Uwe Pfaff and Marieke Prinsloo.
