The nature of home and our societies as well as the state of human and wildlife are considered as bizarre, real and fictional in ‘It’s Raining Cats and Dogs’.
An exhibition of etchings, photographs, installation, mixed media and participatory installation currently on display at the National Art Gallery of Namibia.
Featuring work by The Dune Artist Group and Friends including Carola Rümper, Sandra Schmidt, Niina Turtola, Kirsten Wechslberger and Peter Moller, the exhibition sees an expansive coming together of artists disparate in theme and technique.
With Turtola creating entirely new animal species with an emphasis on typography, Wechslberger amplifying the sounds of animals being hunted illegally or in danger in Namibia and Rümper inviting patrons to request a pair of binoculars from the front desk to aid in their search for The Rümperiens’, amphibious creatures with an affinity for clouds, the exhibition juxtaposes the fantastic with the real world in which Wechslberger sees political lions turned into fat cats.
Both considering the nature of home, Moller and Schmidt present the strangeness of the unfamiliar as well as the destruction of homes and the affordability of land respectively. Moller in the drawings ‘Between Two Beds’ in which Berlin-Hellersdorf’s socialistic housing constructions contain the surprise of an idyllic summer atmosphere as time and settling in normalises his surroundings.
Schmidt in ‘Break-Lines’, a series of blurry photographs depicting barren Spitzkoppe and Swakopmund, and ‘Rooms’ which touches on the issues of escalating renting costs, a topic of discussion in both Namibia and Berlin.
All concerned with the absurdity of both the real and imagined, the exhibition considers what has been normalised in society in a selection that calls for the patron’s participation.
Also interim home to the ‘stamp alive’ project in which Rümper gathers a variety of 10 Namibian and 10 German artists to create stamps under the theme of ‘It’s Raining Cats and Dogs’, the exhibition is varied and engaging beginning with Schmidt’s ‘Fluchtlinien’ in the foyer.
Described as an ‘exhibition en miniature’, the stamp project features the work of local artists Niina Turtola, Ismael Shivute, Fillipus Sheehama, Kirsten Wechslberger, Marita van Rooyen, Barbara Pirron, Ndeende Shivute, Actofel Ilovu, Helen Harris and Dallaz Lok Kandjengo.
Following exhibition at the NAGN, the stamps will additionally be printed by Nampost as the project itself travels to the Gallerie KunstPunkt in Berlin. An event that draws more than
200 000 visitors each year.
‘It’s Raining Cats and Dogs’
will be on display at the
NAGN until 3 March.
– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter
and Instagram
