Copperfield is to host a joint exhibition project in London with:
Andreea Anghel from Suprainfinit, Bones Tan Jones from Harlesden High Street, Edith Karlson from Temnikova & Kasela, Mónica Mays from Blue Velvet Projects, Zoe Williams from Ciaccia Levi, Zhang Yibei from BANK, Hannah Perry from Copperfield.
Hosted and initiated by Copperfield
From ‘wise women’ to ‘witches’, humanity has always held a powerful thread of female knowledge and intuition no matter how much it was hidden, beaten back or ostracised. Calling things that don’t have names explores some of the ways in which a kind of contemporary female mysticism maintains and expands this knowledge through art practice.
The knowledgeable woman mixing herbs was easily cast as a witch by fearful men but what was she mixing for? How often was this in the interests of medicine, contraception, or even dyeing clothes and how much of our early medical knowledge was held in the hands of women and passed from generation to generation?
Bones tan Jones continues to research, participate in and elevate UK and Eastern spiritual traditions and their work often includes handmade pigments using ancient techniques and echoing our ancestors. Practices like these maintain the roots of these early forms of knowledge that have today evolved into a thorough chemistry with endless applications. Zhang Yibei takes a more intuitive approach to natural and domestic materials, often including and manipulating found objects. Beyond a sense of spirituality or the occult there is often also a sensuality in these works, with vessels being a recurring theme. While we might learn softness from our mother figures, it is sensuality and sexuality that people learn from women. Zoe Williams explores every facet of that femininity without the airbrush finish, in work that is unabashedly hedonistic. Drawing also on the imagery of oils, amulets and potions her works often nod to both pagan and more formally religious iconographies and mysticism.
Everyone had a mother in some form. Even the most brutal dictator or the coldest businessman began life listening to the same deep beat we all did. Perhaps this is one of the first forms of knowledge passed to us. It is not for nothing that humans love rhythmic drumming, beats and bass and this threads through much of Hannah Perry’s work. While we all experienced this aspect of sound directly, it is only mothers who will ever truly know birth. From mythical creatures to storks, the iconography of Edith Karlson’s work celebrates the cult of motherhood in all its forms, subverting religious frameworks like the icon painting tradition and rendering all in jesmonite relief. Really knowing though means not only the joys and the tears, but the risks and the true mechanics – armed with which women can truly make informed decisions in relation to their own bodies.
In times gone by, woman to woman, this information was shared more freely and without the taboos, interventions and agendas instigated by religions, societies and prudishness. Today’s society openly shares much of the joy but little of the risk or reality that would have been hard to hide in the past. Hannah Perry has often researched male spaces – factories, gyms, car clubs – and for her current show at Baltic and for this exhibition, she has turned that lens to consider the mechanics of birth. Beyond the bass that emanates from them, the pelvic arrangement of heavy Mustang car doors in her latest work are there to tell you what she has learned by experience; that the significant rearrangement of hip bones during childbirth has all the mechanical brutality of heavy industry. Similarly, Mónica Mays’ often womblike constructions speak of one of the most extreme risks she became aware of. Beyond postnatal depression, and the risks of miscarriage, which are generally downplayed, there lies postpartum psychosis – a less common but severe mental health condition including hallucinations – which most people are totally unaware of.
Whether it is power over their own bodies or the power to lead societies, ultimately female power has been mistrusted by men, and in turn sometimes also by other women while operating in a male society. Take Catherine the second of Russia, as Andreea Anghel does in her Catherine-the-not-so-Great and consider the reactions her power inspired. Her actions and attitudes that we find most unfavourable today are still aligned with her male peers and yet as a woman she is judged differently. From Boudica to Thatcher, perhaps this is not real female power after all but woman forced to play the games and masquerade of a patriarch – albeit to notable effect. Perhaps female power at its best is not interested in singular recognition or in nation states and therefore often remains unrecognised. While all this has held our attention, with how much wisdom and skill have other unsung women held together families, tribes and societies without ever drawing blood?
Calling things that don’t have names 6th Oct 2024 – 23rd Nov 2024 Copperfield
Opening Saturday 5th Oct 5PM – 8PM
In collaboration with:
BANK, Shanghai
Blue Velvet Projects, Zürich
Ciaccia Levi, Paris – Milan
Harlesden High Street, London
Suprainfinit, Bucharest
Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn
