Exploring Stern as a springboard

ONE HUNDRED years ago, an art critic labelled one of South Africa’s most renowned artist’s, Irma Stern’s work, a Freak Picture Exhibition in a review titled Art of Miss Irma Stern – Ugliness as a Cult.

A century later, another rising star in the art world, Georgina Gratrix, is planning to challenge that review and she uses the critic’s sentiment as her point of departure to examine the ways in which Modernism, and in particular German Expressionism, made an impact on her own work. Gratrix believes that the historical influences of these two art forms continue to shape the twists and turns of contemporary art.

Shortly after Stern’s first exhibition in South Africa in 1922, she was lambasted in the local media and now Gratrix’s The Cult of Ugliness, a new exhibition of paintings and sculptures in conversation with Stern’s artworks, will open at the iconic painter’s former home on Heritage Day.

The UCT Irma Stern Museum selected Gratrix as its second artist in residence. And as part of the museum’s 50th anniversary year, Gratrix has been working in the museum residency studio for the past three months on work that will no doubt set tongues wagging. “Irma is such a central figure in South African art and it’s an absolute privilege for my work to be in conversation with hers.

“The exhibition is very tongue-incheek given the criticism Irma faced in 1922,” said Gratrix.

The Cult of Ugliness has a long precedent, beginning with the German philosopher Karl Rosenkranz, who wrote The Aesthetics of the Ugly in 1853, while the poet Ezra Pound again used the phrase in 1913 to distinguish artwork that differed from what he described as belonging to the “Cult of Beauty”. Most recently, Umberto Eco deployed the phrase in his book On Ugliness in 2007 where he questions why, through the centuries, there have been so many theories of beauty but none devoted to what the public generally considers “ugly”.

“You can’t have one without the other. It also depends on who’s viewing the work,” said Gratrix, who has had similar accusations levelled at her own work. Interested in the gaudy, the obvious and the banal, her paintings playfully investigate the boundaries between desirability and the grotesque.

Born a century after Stern, Gratrix is also a dedicated colourist, testing the limits of oil painting. Many of Stern’s works are reflected in Gratrix’s pieces, compositionally, in their colouration and in their subject matter, making both direct and indirect references to Stern’s work.

“All painting is a conversation with the history of painting. I have always been drawn to colour. I know it can be an uncomfortable palate. For me, it’s always too much paint and too much colour. But I don’t see that as a negative,” said Gratrix, describing her intentions for her upcoming show at the Irma Stern Museum.

During the residency Gratrix spent time painting both her own collection of objects as well as the rich and varied archive of Stern’s personal trove, which brought her endless inspiration. Coupled with these studies, Gratrix will include previously unexhibited paintings from her own collection that will find new meaning in the context of the UCT Irma Stern Museum.

“My work is almost sculptural. The paint rises from the canvas to give my work an almost-3d aspect. This is how we use the medium to push the boundaries,” she said.

Despite what the critics may or may not say, Gratrix has grand plans.

“I am heading off to New York in December for my second international solo exhibition so I am already on a high,” she remarked.