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Church Projects, an art space on Church Street, Cape Town, could be mistaken for an upmarket trendy boutique. A rack of clothing — minimalist ivory-coloured shirts, dungarees, tunics and fabric offcuts — lines the edge of the minuscule gallery. Closer inspection reveals the garments to form part of an exhibition — “MY HEART BELONGS TO THE OTHER” by Malagasy artist Joël Andrianomearisoa.
On view until 22 April the installation began as a conversation between the artist and Hoosein Mahomed, who co-founded Church Projects with Shelleen Maharaj. The exhibition coincides with another presentation by the artist, The Five Continents of all Our Desires, at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Mocaa). Situated in the museum’s atrium, the large flowing installation made from black silk paper and suspended from the ceiling, is an abstract and poetic reflection on land masses and human migration. While the installation at Zeitz Mocaa is immense and towering, the artist’s solo exhibition at Church Projects feels understated - more inward and exploratory. This approach is in line with the sensibility of the space. Church Projects is an unconventional art space - an almost corridor size space with two floors that focuses on experimentation and invites both emerging and established artists to test boundaries. Interested in art objects as well as transient art forms such as performances, Church Projects founders encourage interventions that are immersive and daring.
Andrianomearisoa engages a wide range of styles and materials to create alluring forms; over the years, these have included synthetic flowers, paint, neon and paper. His works have inhabited gallery spaces and museums globally; Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Spain, Japan, Benin and South Africa, among others. In 2019, Andrianomearisoa represented his birth country in its inaugural participation at the 58th Venice Biennale - a highly anticipated event in the international art scene, which in that year boasted a total of ninety national pavilions. Andrianomearisoa sought to pay tribute to the land through an installation that used densely packed black paper, hung from the ceiling, to reimage the Ilafy Palace which was the secondary residence of King Radama II of Madagascar. His reign coincided with the pivotal period of re-opening Madagascar to European influence.
Andrianomearisoa is no stranger to the South African art scene; he has taken part in solo and group exhibitions in Cape Town and Johannesburg over a period spanning two decades, beginning with the monumental Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent, an exhibition that featured work of over 70 artists from 23 countries across the continent, travelling across Europe and landing at the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) in 2007.
In “MY HEART BELONGS TO THE OTHER”, which he describes as a slight diversion from the more epic installation such as the one at Zeitz Mocaa, Andrianomearisoa uses textiles, light, sound and smell to create an immersive environment that conveys the liveliness foundational to his practice as he reflects on land, movement, migration and forms of othering. The exhibition continues Andrianomearisoa’s exploration of Madagascar, which features often as the understructure of his conceptual inquiry. In this instance, he is interested in presenting clues and traces that make it possible for South African audiences, for whom the country is little known, to explore Madagascar.
“The show is not a statement - sometimes in my work I’ll write something very clear as a statement - but with this exhibition, I’m insisting on the experimental, everything is a suggestion. Everything is in between but also on the edge,” he says from Paris, over Zoom. He talks fast and excitedly but with clarity. He is every bit as graceful as the large draping silk paper constructions for which he is known.
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