Sanja Ivekovic – The Unknown Heroine

Juxtaposition is an ancient technique used by artists, writers, designers and filmmakers to unsettle their audience and make meaning from the disparate. Light and dark, silence and motion, fear and excitement, the interplay between opposing elements can stimulate, thrill and confound, sometimes all at once.

From Magritte's rock floating beside a cloud to John Woo's slow-motion gunfight in Face/Off (as Somewhere Over the Rainbow plays ever so sweetly), heads have been turned and attuned to new perceptions of reality. Last Saturday at the South London Gallery (SLG), currently one of my favourite places to wile away and hour or two, I stumbled across a wonderful example in Unknown Heroine, the first UK solo exhibition by Croatian artist Sanja Ivekovic (part of which also takes place at Calvert 22).

Stills from Sanja Ivekovic's Instructions No 1 (1976)

In the 1970s there was a generation of artists in Yugoslavia that defiantly questioned the role of art in society and strove to democratise artistic space by abandoning galleries and taking to the streets. There they pondered questions about social structures, gender politics and identity. Ivekovic was part of this vanguard yet, according to the SLG, "her point of departure has been her positioning as a woman in society and the influence of mass media as well as the politics of power in the context of socialist and post-socialist society."  

As Ivekovic herself proclaims,

"I am convinced that activism and art can be mutually complementary."

The Croation works in a variety of mediums – from conceptual video edits to performance and social sculpture. Each piece challenges the status quo in its own way and merits close inspection. I do love the Tragedy of Venus, a series of photomontages that pair Ivekovic with Marilyn Monroe, her mirrored poses "questioning the stereotypes that influence the production of public and private images".

Sanja does Marilyn in the Tragedy of a Venus (1975-76)

General Alert (Soap Opera) also caught my eye. Once again Ivekovic, with wicked wit, peels back the absurdity of mass media by splicing together footage from a public television channel – captured amid the missile attacks on Zagreb during the Croatian War of Independence – and a popular Spanish soap of the time. Conclusive proof that real life is the most compelling drama we have.

A still from General Alert (Soap Opera) (1975)
(c) Calvert 22

But my favourite work is Woman's House (Sunglasses), a series of sunglasses adverts featuring models, beside whom are placed harrowing personal accounts of domestic abuse instead of gushing testimonials about how the likes of Prada and Armani have made them feel stylish and more sexy. It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it critique that made me feel surprised, shocked and stupid for not having picked up the conceit a little sooner. The marketing world is littered with parodies of ads but this is a much darker tone. As Ivekovic explains, this is one her many strategies of intervention, a way to make people confront the toxic culture of image construction in the media. "I always seek the most effective way of getting the message across in a given context," she says. "I think that this state of urgency, which is characteristic of the times we live in, demands that artists be extremely flexible."

An ad from Ivekovic's Women's House (Sunglasses) (2012)

This fascinating exhibition explores what binds politics with aesthetics and proves that, in the words of the artist herself, "nothing is free from ideology".

"Sanja Ivekovic: Unknown Heroine" is showing at the SLG and Calvert 22 until 24 February. Calvert 22 will also be the venue for a talk given by curator Lina Dzuverovic on 7 February at 7pm.

Short story For Ideastap: Lady of the Lake

A response to an Editor's brief at Ideastap. The theme is "Frozen":

LADY OF THE LAKE

Click, swooooosh, clack swooooosh,
The lady of the lake pushes and pirouettes,
gleaming and gliding gracefully over
a foggy, floral-patterned mirror to the heavens.

All is still but for this exquisite silhouette of a figure, 
impeccably slipped into a barely-there singlet of 
maidenly white silk and crystal-trimmed lace,
and adorned with a fluffy cloud of cobalt blue.

Each day she would arrive at the same time, alone 
but never lonely, rehearsed yet lost in the moment.
Impervious to the biting chill of the winter front,
unflinching in her precise navigation of the cracks beneath. 

Each day I would cross the valley at sunrise,
body weary from the exertions of the night before,
but with a spirit renewed by a rush of anticipation
at the performance to come. A celestial vision incarnate. 

No glance or greeting, no longing for someone or some
place else. Total immersion in the now. The hush of nature
contentedly at work to the tune of a gentle whirl. My mind
at play with a memory that would flicker but not fade. 

This willful detachment from one another heightened
my longing, my wonder. The shared silence restorative,
a chance to be; realignment with the world. The universe.
Asking nothing more than that, which was revealed to me.

The rhythm of that winter was quickly set; the ebb and flow
of our lives in parallel, yet out of orbit. One hour to co-exist,  
one breath from raising the curtain of intimacy. All the while,
fearful of an interruption, shattering the immaculate ideal.

Taking my place one day in the top-tier of nature's great amphitheatre, 
a row of felled trees frozen over to the southern side of the lake,
a treasure amid the tundra, I watched expectantly as the first rays 
of daylight danced, ever so fleetingly, on the stage.

Divine. To the main attraction. Tick followed tock, followed tick,
followed tock. The same etched expanse of white … only this time without
a familiar dot of blue making elegant patterns in the sky.
Heavy breath. A sense of dread building with every passing minute.

An hour passed like never before without her. But was this a break,
a pause or a simple twist of fate? To assuage my own fears I advanced toward
the lake but then, propelled by panic and jolted by the capricious
ground before me, I suddenly began to careen into the distance.

A blur of white light flashed before my eyes as I spun round and round,
my skin lacquered with the gloss of freshly frosted ice. Lips sealed,
eyes almost shut. I emitted a slow-choked whimper, breaking the ineffable
silence that had been so absolute and entrancing those past few months. 
Just then a bolt of blue shot past my view. I spread myself larger than life,
using every inch of gravity to bring myself to a halt. 

Scurrying on my hands and knees, I retraced a skimmed path
I had made until I came to a fissure in the ice. There beside it
was a dot of bright colour, of blue. A familiar blue. But from where?
I scraped. Still hard to make out. I scraped again. A cobalt blue hue
emerged through the ice.

No.

Please no. 

I quickly cast off my gloves and ferociously picked at the ice
to the point of seizure, till my nails began to come away
from their beds. I began to wail, beating at the thick sheet
until my bloodied hands stained the pure white. Then,
as if a switch had been flicked, I awoke to the reality
of the situation. There beneath me lay the lady, hands
pressed against the ice, preserved in now eternal  beauty.
Her final resting place.

I sat, inches apart from the one whose soul I felt I knew,
yet whose life I would never touch. I gazed into her eyes,
expecting either a look of wide-eyed panic or one of
wistfulness at the deep solitude of her tragic demise.
But to my surprise, there was a faint smile. And not the kind
that is fleeting or well-worn. But a look a contentment.
The mien of one who is at peace with themselves. Serenity. 

At that moment, I looked up to the sky, drew the longest
breath of my life and began to weep. Here, at the outer limits
of human emotion, in the great expanse of nowhere,
my tears ran slowly down my cheeks and quickly became
part of this glacial tomb. They were an affirmation of life
but also of death.

There I lay for hours until help reached us from the nearby village.
For weeks I barely uttered more than a polite sentence or two from
day to day. I never tried to analyse or reason my way to a conclusion
about the events of that winter but they have stayed with me,
close at heart, awakening my senses to the promise of fuller life.
The majesty and the mystery.

To the lady, I thank you. And I miss you.

Lessons from 1997: how English rugby can move forward

In 1997, just as the English RFU was striding purposefully into the professional era complete with a Nike swoosh on the hallowed white of its national team kit, I came across a T-shirt with the following slogan:

"There are still hard and fast rules to rugby…
You've got to be hard and you've got to be fast."

This provoked mixed feelings. I liked its no-nonsense sentiment but I loathed its brutal truth and despaired at my failure to pass the test, to measure up in the most macho of sports. You see, I was neither blessed with speed nor an ox-like constitution. I did have a neck, unlike the bulls packing down against me in the front row, and bleep tests and Cambridge runs were harrowing experiences for a flat-footed plodder like me.

On the positive side, I was rangy and stoic with a healthy disregard for my own welfare. But above all, and this to me is the enduring appeal of the game, I could see a way to contribute despite my apparent physical shortcomings. Rugby is the archetype team sport, "the world in union". Very democratic. It's about individual players fulfilling specific roles with several responsibilities. Simultaneously, each is reliant upon the other to be in the right place at the right time – and to make the right decisions when they get there. Do I go to ground or go into contact? Shall I go to the blindside if I sniff a gap or should I move towards my teammates and set up a maul? After a catch and drive at the line-out, how far is too far?

Some of my happiest times have been on the rugby pitch, taking up the challenge side by side with teammates, who swiftly became friends. As a player, I prided myself on honesty, an attitude to the game that former Scottish and British Lions coach Jim Telfer so powerfully evoked in this speech in 1997. Here's where I measured up: doing the basics well, knowing my place (in every respect), keeping it simple (forwards go forward) and breaking my back. Then I'd wake up the next day and try to be better. Unfortunately rugby is the most unforgiving of contact sports and if you don't maintain your training or adapt as your body changes, it's time to switch to the round ball or, worse still, trudge off to the gym once every week. Then, when the game is on, you get all moist-eyed with nostalgia over a Guinness at the pub. 

So why am I ranting as if "I could have been a contender"? Well I like many rugby fans have been following England's fortunes in the autumn internationals and despairing at what I've seen despite the promise shown at the Six Nations earlier this year. This group of players is as "hard and fast" as any of its predecessors but that's not enough. It never has been.

Let's be clear: Stuart Lancaster's side trail behind the more aggressive yet clinical southern hemisphere sides but there is a solid nucleus of talent there that could challenge for the next World Cup in 2015, particularly as they will be on home soil. However there is much work to do and this team must be in intensive learning mode at all times. My main concern, perhaps confusion, is how a squad of elite players can be so clueless on the pitch, particularly when the errors are unforced. Against both Australia and South Africa they failed to do the basics well, be resilient and compete for the full 80 minutes. These sides were some way off their best, both in terms of performance and personnel. And yet England failed to turn the screw at Twickenham. Meanwhile the coaching staff consider the close scores, and not the performances, as being the main indication of this side's progress. Will they learn from those mistakes?

England, led by Chris Robshaw, arrive at Twickenham for the game against South Africa, which they lost 16-15

We're deep into the professional age now, a new frontier of sports science, fitness and performance where players are more likely to be undergoing cryotherapy in an ice bath after a game than downing a beer in a hot one with 20 other players. A world of possibilities where guys such as the newcomer Tom Youngs can successfully move from centre to hooker in a handful of years. While the athletic prowess of a starting 15 has improved by leaps and bounds, application of technique and force of discipline have not. Here are a few gripes that keep popping into my head when watching England: missed tackles, incorrect body positions when going into contact. slow rucking, not running straight and taking the ball at pace on the gain line, protecting 'the pill', keeping ball in hand when overlaps appear, passing to the man on the shoulder…

It's the sideways running that's perhaps most irritating (I'd be threatened with countless laps for committing such a horrid offence). We've all seen it and read the recurring criticisms of "dull" England, struggling to get over the gain line. Well before we even consider imagination and ball-playing instinct, Lancaster's team has muddled through these autumn internationals with a mixture of indecision, inertia and panic. Robshaw's hesitation in the dying seconds of the South Africa game was merely symptomatic of a deeper malaise (although England had never once looked like scoring a try up to that point, so why not kick?).

Why can't ball carriers, that's everybody and not just our go-to guy Tuilagi, hit the ball at pace? I would question the coaching staff as much as the players. Yes individuals such as the fly-half have a responsibility to set the trajectory, to get their line moving, but a rugby ball often goes through several pairs of hands in the straight-running All Blacks, regardless of the number on the their backs. Why should it be any different for the men in white?

Whether from set piece or in open play there is a distinct lack of variety in our game. Very few dummies, miss passes, different angles of running. I sometimes wonder what the backs coaches are paid to do (there are two). At a time like this I pull out the 'playbook', or rather a sheet, that one of my old rugby coaches gave to each squad member in my college U16 team. 

Armed with these moves, our fly-half could pull the trigger in any number of situations using a host of different strike runners. And blunt instruments like myself would be there to "blitz" and present the ball for the scrum half to go again. Now consider that this was under-16 level. Such tactics are applicable to all levels of the game. Besides making crucial errors (missed kicks, dropped passes, weak tackles) another way to lose an international is by being predictable. This England team is in danger of becoming just that.

Now I am a loyal supporter and I want to be optimistic. There are encouraging signs. Firstly, the squad is still evolving (the team to face the All Blacks averages less than 14 caps and 25 years per player, compared to the 49 caps and 28 years of the current world champions). They must have time to develop an stronger understanding among one another. England do have dynamic game changers in the shape of Courtney Lawes, Joe Launchbury and Owen Farrell. Steffon Armitage's scavenging could be the missing link in the back row, should Lancaster choose to look across the Channel, and the injured Ben Foden is still one of our brightest and most intelligent backs.

Secondly, history is on their side. In 1997 an England team in its infancy under Clive Woodward, and skippered by a 26-year-old Lawrence Dallaglio  (the same age as current captain Chris Robshaw, incidentally) followed feeble displays against Australia and South Africa with a rousing 26-26 draw against an unbeaten New Zealand. It was a formative match for that squad – a "how good can we really be?" moment – and from there they embarked on a painstaking, detail-oriented quest to reach the summit of world rugby. And not by aspiring to be like another team; they wanted to set a new benchmark in the game by being the best that they could be. Last week's ITV tribute to Dallaglio documents this shift in mindset particularly well.

So instead of being harder and faster than the next man, perhaps it is head and heart that really matter. When you stand toe to toe with the best and refuse to back down. When to avert danger in certain areas of the pitch and create it in others. When you fight for every inch of every battle in every minute. And when you reach the seventieth minute and your chance comes, you have the vision to see it and the belief to convert. When you find a way to win. Let's hope that England stand up on Saturday against McCaw, Carter, Nonu, Dagg and co, safe in the knowledge that what they learn about themselves could pay back handsomely in three years' time.