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More and more artists are turning their attention to climate change and the impact humanity and capitalism have had on our planet. However, it is tricky to tackle these issues in a way that is not didactic or preachy.
Bonita Alice, who has recently resettled in South Africa since a long spell in the UK, has somehow, through subverting vintage detritus to generate a quirky set of miniature statuettes, settled on a vocabulary or form of expression that digs into humanity’s hubris and exploitation of the natural world that is charming, humourous and politically astute.
Fittingly, I first encounter Alice’s exhibition, Unbearable Heroes, on the opening night when loadshedding shrouded the top gallery at Nel on Church Street, Cape Town, in darkness. Discovering each work courtesy of a beam of light from my cellphone, feels somewhat akin to stumbling through a foreign or vacated space, discovering a lost civilisation, a defunct museum perhaps. This is apt given Alice’s works – a series of mini sculptures that evoke the past, but are reassembled into strange new objects that poke fun at human follies.
The sculptures or assemblages are diminutive in size, highlighting their function as incisive refractions of reality. They are fashioned from found objects Alice presumably sourced from vintage or second-hand shops. Each wry title, extracted from travellers to foreign lands in the 15th century, reads as a parody of human behaviour, particularly concerning the animals that are central to each assemblage. This leads you to consider that perhaps humanity can only truly conceive of itself through ‘another’ replication of itself – something an analysis of AI is starting to make clear.
Alice’s uncanny assemblages exploit a single motif - toy animals mounted on small wooden boxes – of the sort you might keep jewellery or other precious items. Some of these animals are adorned by clothing or fabric and are positioned in an ‘unnatural’ context. In Altar for example, a miniature cow appears to have fallen off the titular altar nose down, as if purposefully knocked off its religious pedestal. Of course, animals aren’t usually placed on pedestals or indeed on altars. This is the point Alice makes with each assemblage in placing the animals in human contexts, treating them as if they are not only human but are prized beings – those after whom sculptures, art, are made. The animals are the titular 'unbearable heroes', the beings humanity refuses to acknowledge. Though we too could be these despicable beings - 'unbearable' due to our arrogance and greed, but also in how we have treated humans as animals – which the reference to old texts in the titles evokes.
The human qualities attributed to the animals are highlighted through the titles of the works. For example, one title reads: In all these countries people wear two cloths, which refers to a work with a cow with a small jumper tied to its body. The work titled Thieves are Invincible, unbearable heroes presents a horse with a shirt draped around its neck.
Absurdity is achieved through this device - assigning human characteristics and behaviour to animals. We don’t associate animals with ‘bad’ behaviour such as stealing or deception. In this way, Alice draws the viewers’ attention to the fact that animals are inherently innocent beings – incapable of graces, and ego or malevolent activities that humans are capable of. From this point of view, who are the lesser beings; the animals or the humans?
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