SVEN ‘t JOLLE – ‘People Are Bad For The Economy’
Station Gallery - 2nd September - 13th October - 2018
Installation view
Six works occupy the main gallery, variations on the theme of a labourer
with shovel. At their fullest, the figures are rendered in painted plaster to
resemble an assembly of broken sections of old ceramic plumbing pipes. The
effect is instantly comic, as the worker, a patched and rickety assembly, props
himself against his shovel, a cigarette jutting from his jaw; the task on pause.
Slow Down Work In Progress (In
Progress) 2018 178 X 25 X 25
cm plaster, pigment and steel.
But just as the rendering is not quite what it seems, on inspection the
worker’s repose gradually becomes less certain. The works record not just
stagers but stages, a task more open-ended than some measurement of progress
allows. The worker pauses, not so much from idleness or mischief, but because
the work itself proceeds in fits and starts. At times he must watch and wait to
measure efforts, much as an artist does. Even at the most menial level, the
task is not quite automated or robotic. On closer reflection, worker and task
acquire basic human and personable attributes for this delay in the task. The
show’s full title – ‘People Are Bad For The Economy – A work in progress’ poses
an absurd disjuncture between the two, as if the inefficiency of the populace
were merely a disruption to the circulation of wealth. Such extreme veneration
of business is unfortunately a feature of our times, but obviously since people
are also shareholders and consumers, an economy is meaningless without them.
The short-term objection to the inefficiency of labour here; is really an
attempt to nudge us about the incoherence of such views. The economy too is a
‘work in progress’.
The artist’s starting point was the road sign pictogram flagging traffic
delays
The preliminary study ‘ZZZZ’
(Distractions) (2018) initially began simply converting the two-dimensional
figure into a three- dimensional one.
ZZZZ (Distractions) (2018) 134 X 20 X 20 cm Wood (plinth), Steel
and Plasticine
But the more the figure is realised spatially, inevitably the more
personable he becomes, the less efficient or economical his function, and the
task too then changes.
The replacement of clay plumbing pipes with more durable PVC ones is
still a common task in public thoroughfares and cause of traffic delays. The
artist’s passing observation of fragments of old pipe amongst such excavations,
no doubt triggered more plastic associations, for limbs, torsos and perhaps an
ancient heritage in terra cotta figurines, something in which he has a
longstanding interest. But while it was possible to recover enough of these
fragments and assemble a figure from them, the message or meaning would then be
slightly different. The figure by those means becomes an exemplar of recycling
or re-purposing and suggests a more thrifty progress or process.
Instead the artist is content to merely allude to the possibility in
painted plaster. Shorn of a demonstration in recycling, the figure is then just
a metaphor for ramshackle plumbing. While hardly a sophisticated or deeper
treatment of the figure, it does suggest another kind of ineffectiveness to the
system, a process of wear and tear, eventually for the economy.
[Foreground] - Slow Down Work In Progress (Work) (2018) 178 X 100 X 60 cm plaster,
pigment and steel
It also signals two key aspects to the artist’s work. The first is a distinctive approach to materials; the second an interest in figures as tokens or emblems for social roles rather than individual psychology. ‘t Jolle’s technique is based on modelling and occasionally results in fibreglass casts, but is uninclined to traditional metals and editions therein and equally indifferent to the more sophisticated fabrications favoured by many contemporaries from Jeff Koons to Wim Delvoye to Thomas Schütte, amongst others. Equally, he is rarely drawn to ready-mades or recycling junk, while nevertheless recognising vital qualities to such objects and materials for his purposes. Hence the rendered clay pipe fragments in the current show. Similarly the decision to fashion his own shovels here, is made partly to deliberately avoid association with Marcel Duchamp’s famous use of a snow shovel, partly with an eye to re-scaling, although the figures generally are intended to be ‘life size’. The exception is Spade by Spade (2018) where the distinction between worker and tool all but disappears and token or icon is all
Spade by Spade (2018) 120 X 45 X 26 cm steel
On the point
concerning scale, it is worth also noting the artist’s aversion to the gigantic
or spectacular in presentation, a common trait in contemporary figurative
sculpture, seen in the work of sculptors such as Thomas Houseago or David
Alkmejd. For ‘t Jolle an encounter with the work must retain a human scale and
approachable presentation.
Materials and the
process of realising the work are often a matter of opportunity or occasion for
‘t Jolle. Works tend to pass through distinct stages, noted in the broad dating
to some works (sometimes spanning two or three years), in which time other
means become available and the work ‘progresses’. In this sense, much of the
artist’s work is a work ‘in progress’. Here the artist’s production process
finds a convenient parallel with the ostensible economic model targeted in the
show title. It too suffers stops and starts, is often patching and rephrasing a
more fluent statement, is surely bad for the market. This aspect is
particularly to the fore in Progress in
Work (2018).
Progress in Work (2018) 170 X 105 X 102 cm steel, earth and rubble
Here the work has ‘progressed’ no further than a bare armature and slyly
hints at a robotic framework beneath the worker’s worn demeanour. Things may be
bad under this economic model but one senses they could get a lot worse for
people.
This interweaving of formal issues with social ones is particularly
elegant. Ultimately, it is what lifts the work beyond mere satire or polemic.
The work is grounded, not just in a broad social practice and situation but in
the particulars of production and the artist’s own preferences and
opportunities. The work is heartfelt and hands-on in ways that are refreshing in
contemporary sculpture. We encounter the work in an economy of representation,
where works work for their meaning, even if not fully or perhaps without working
properly. And where what is bad is something less than persons, a savage
diminishment of labour that threatens to be beyond repair or progress. The work
wears its sophistication lightly, and while deceptively slight, rewards
extended viewing.
Installation view
The artist was born in Antwerp in 1966 and attended the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts 1986-1990 following which he exhibited throughout Belgium, France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland, in private and public galleries, solo and group or curated shows. Apart from sculpture the artist has also been prolific in drawing and publications, such as his 2017 book The Age of Entitlement, accompanying an exhibition at Wiels in Brussels and an online album of drawings.
It
is a surprise, to say the least, to find a mid-career artist of his standing
exhibiting in Melbourne, indeed to learn that he has been a resident here since
2011, together with his Australian wife and young family. While he shrugs
philosophically about advice of ‘career suicide’, on the whole there can be no
doubt that it has proved a satisfactory arrangement personally. In that time he
has maintained his continental connections and preserved a solid reputation and
extensive web presence, much of which is listed below. His exposure here
actually starts from the Melbourne International Biennale of 1999 when he was
part of a Belgian pavilion. But this is really the first time Melbourne has had
a chance to view a solo exhibition of any substance. It is surely a bit of a
coup for Station to have secured such a talent and marks a welcome addition to
the Melbourne art scene
ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND STATION
GALLERY
My thanks to both for help in preparing this
review.
OTHER ONLINE RESOURCES
