- Venue
- South London Gallery
- Location
- London
Dorine Van Meel’s exhibition at the South London Gallery considers dualities or dual natures. The intriguing subtitle, ‘Between the Dog and the Wolf’, refers to a French expression, ‘entre le chien et le loup’, which describes twilight, which is neither day nor night. It is one thing with two sides, a civilized and a wild, both contained within the same creature. Ways in which this idea is made manifest within the exhibition are: the show is made up of two interrelated video installations; the atmosphere evokes twilight being in dim light but not dark; the sound aspect of the work involves two female narrators.
Room 1 is a darkened space containing a double channel video installation, ‘Between the Dog and the Wolf’, 2015, using two projectors placed in diagonally opposite corners of the room. These project the same image onto both sides of a rectangular screen suspended at a tilted angle in the centre of the room. The video consists of a series of computer-generated geometric lines and patterns of different colours. The other element is a soundtrack made up of a spoken text with rhythmic electronic music.
Room 2 contains a single channel video installation, ‘At Least the Oranges come from Sicily’, 2015, in which text is projected onto the wall. Phrases gradually appear at a pace at which they can be read. These phrases make up sentences. They disappear to be replaced by others. They tell a story of personal everyday experiences. The lighting in this room is subdued (as opposed to the darker Room 1). Both rooms have walls painted a dark taupe. In Room 1 the window is blacked out whereas in Room 2 the window is unmasked but uses smoked glass to subdue the light. The room is also lit by a pink light bulb. This very particular lighting may be intended to evoke twilight.
The installation in Room 1 at first appeared baffling, especially as it was sometimes hard to make out the words on the soundtrack. Spending time in Room 2 helped clarify and relate the two rooms as some of the wall text in Room 2 was used in the spoken text in Room 1. The difference is that in Room 1 the viewer reads the text for themselves whereas in Room 2 it is spoken to them. This repeated text evoked personal everyday experiences, often those of women, in particular those of the artist’s mother and grandmother as they went about such ordinary tasks as folding laundry. The combination of the visuals and the soundtrack in Room 1 was intriguing as they were two separate elements yet made a whole. This contrasts with most video installations where the soundtrack is an integral part of the video.
The works in this installation were all made during Van Meel’s residency at the South London Gallery. The texts reflect her everyday experiences while there, thus making the installation site-specific. They also refer to her reading at the time of feminist theory and biographies of female artists and revolutionaries. This consideration of feminism made her reflect on the experiences of her mother and grandmother. This feminine aspect is also reinforced by the use of two female narrators (one being Van Meel herself). She sees feminism as a way of being able to view the world differently and consider change in society. It could also be claimed that the feminine is often viewed as the ‘other’ or part of the dual nature of humanity and often an alternative way of looking at things, bringing us back to the duality invoked by the title of the exhibition.
‘Dorine Van Meel: Between the Dog and the Wolf’ is at the South London Gallery from 15 April to 14 June 2015.
