ART-PRESENTATION: Nashashibi/Skaer-Future Sun

Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer have been working together as Nashashibi/Skaer since 2005. Their joint practice is a meeting place for the development For the first time, Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer bring together films and works from their joint and individual practices in the exhibition ‘Future Sun’. The paintings, sculptures and films complement each other and add new meanings to the three oeuvres.of work that is separate from the individual artists and leads a life of its own.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: S.M.A.K. Archive

Nashashibi/Skaer make meditative films about art, mythology and the world. They often take the work of other artists as a starting point for exploring themes that touch them personally, such as identity, the portrayal of women, beauty and its pitfalls, colonisation and political conflicts. Their films reject plot-based rules and follow an associative, sometimes cryptic trail of images and sequences that accumulate, spread out and forge links between themes and ideas. In the exhibition “Future Sun”, Lucy Skaer and Rosalind Nashashibi explore the intriguing idea of non-linear time. They use it as a guide through the space and the works on display. Their inspiration source is “The Shobies’ Story” (1990), a novella by Ursula Le Guin, in which a group of test pilots of various ages and from different planets embark on a space voyage that allows them to experience non-linear time. They are unable to communicate with one another as a result. Rosalind Nashashibi weaves the story as a subject for discussion through her recent films entitled “Part One. Where there is a joyous mood, there a comrade will appear to share a glass of wine” (2018) and “Part Two. The moon nearly at the full. The team horse goes astray” (2019). Lucy Skaer translates the idea of time travel into highly material sculptures that undergo a process of transition. Nashashibi/Skaer also debut their new film “Lamb” (2019). In addition, they show “Flash” (2006), a nocturnal journey through the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that was captured on 16mm film, and “Why Are You Angry?” (2017), a critical interpretation of looking and being watched, conquering and caring, prompted by the oeuvre of Paul Gauguin. Rosalind Nashashibi is a film-maker and painter. In recent exhibitions she has invariably shown films alongside paintings, in order to allow their intrinsic, pictorial and cinematographic qualities to resonate with each other. Coexisting within communities, be they small or large, and the care towards others that this implies, is a theme that the artist often touches upon. In her films, she departs from the inner experience of real and staged events that are directly or indirectly inspired by art, literature or politics. With the help of cinematographic conventions, which are approached in a personal way, she endeavours to develop new forms of storytelling and ways of seeing. Paintings by Rosalind Nashashibi offer impressions or more concrete representations, in which the figurative has its own kind of language. Lucy Skaer is a multidisciplinary artist. She works with sculptures, drawings, installations and film. Skaer departs from found images, materials and objects that bear the traces of time and frequent use, production and reproduction. Form, meaning and value in her work are determined by both formal characteristics and intrinsic – often art historical and mythological – motives. During the creative process these are moved, associated, merged, distorted, concealed and abstracted, amongst other things. Lucy Skaer questions the definitive nature of artworks, forms and meanings and sees each moment of contemplation as just one phase in a continuous process of content-related shifts and material transformations.

Info: S.M.A.K., Jan Hoetplein 1, Gent, Duration: 30/11/19-16/2/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 9:30-17:30, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, https://smak.be