JEANNETTE EHLERS
WHIP IT GOOD: SPINNING FROM HISTORY’S FILTHY MIND
PERFORMANCES START 24 APRIL, EXHIBITION 7 MAY – 20 JUNE 2015
RIVINGTON PLACE
LONDON, UK
Free performances & exhibition
Part I – Performances: 24 – 30 April, 2015, 7pm each night
Part II – Exhibition: 7 May – 20 June 2015
Whip it good, 2014, photo Casper Maare.
About:
Autograph ABP presents Whip It Good: Spinning From History’s Filthy Mind, the first UK solo exhibition by Danish-Trinidadian artist Jeannette Ehlers.
Presented in two parts, seven evening performances in the gallery followed by a seven-week exhibition, Whip it Good retraces the footsteps of colonialism and maps the contemporary reverberations of the triangular slave trade via a series of performances that will result in a body of new ‘action’ paintings.
Jeannette Ehlers’ practice takes the form of simple actions, which erase, enhance or animate historical spaces, raising complex questions about memory, race and colonialism. In Whip It Good,Ehlers fiercely confronts national and personal histories in an effort to critically reimagine and challenge racist systems of power and domination.
The March, 2012, video still.
During each performance, the artist radically transforms the whip – a potent sign and signifier of violence against the enslaved body – into a contemporary painting tool, evoking within both the spectators and the participants the physical and visceral brutality of the transatlantic slave trade. Deep black charcoal is rubbed into the whip, directed at a large-scale white canvas, and – following the artist’s initial ritual – offered to members of the audience to complete the painting.
However, the themes that emerge from Whip It Good trace beyond those of slavery: Ehlers’ actions powerfully disrupt historical relationships between agency and control in the contemporary. The ensuing ‘whipped’ canvases become transformative bearers of the historical legacy of imperial violence, and through a controversial artistic act re-awaken critical debates surrounding gender, race and power within artistic production. What the process generates for the artist, is an intensely focused space in which to make new work as part of a cathartic collaborative process. Ehlers seven newly produced paintings will then be displayed in the second part of the exhibition, Spinning from History’s Filthy Mind, from May 7 through to June 20, alongside a selection of earlier moving image works made by the artist.
The Invisible Empire, 2009, video installation.
Drawing on film, photography and video, Ehlers’ moving image works weave facts and images into potent triggers for forgotten memories or lived experiences.Waves (2009), a manipulated photograph and looped video projection, presents a hypnotic mediation on the trade in humans across the Atlantic. In The March (2012), Ehlers uses scans of her own brain to produce a quietly poetic work that references her personal development and coming to political consciousness. Off The Pig (2012) represents an ode to liberation struggles and the civil rights movement, and features the voices of Angela Davis, Huey Newton and the Black Panthers – here, the juxtaposition of militant voices and frantic chanting produces a rousing, hallucinogenic mini-documentary. Black Bullets (2012) is greatly influenced by the Haitian revolution led by Toussaint Louverture and shot at the Citadel in Haiti. In The Invisible Empire(2009), Ehlers provocatively places the figure of an elderly migrant (the artist’s father) as the protagonist of a sculptural video piece that highlight pertinent issues such as the plight of those caught up in human trafficking and modern day slavery. Using an archaeological approach to history, Ehler’s dreamlike eulogies to freedom and resistance force us to think about global liberation and the collective well-being of marginalised people in the world today.
Black Bullet, 2012, video (see vimeo at the bottom of this post).
‘Performing Whip It Good over seven days will be both physically and mentally challenging. For me, this act represents a personal attempt to identify with a brutal past while trying to make sense of the present.’
– Jeannette Ehlers, 2015
(press release)