ABRIE FOURIE


For full catalogue and print editions contact: skilpad@mweb.co.za (South Africa) themiraclefilter@earthlink.net (United States)

Extracts from ‘End of the world’


People commonly use the phrase “nothing is going to happen to you, and it wouldn’t be the end of the world if anything did.” In light of the current political climate, End of the World suggests termination
of existence, destruction and abolition. It could also refer to the death of a person.

The end of something is also the beginning of something new.

Of my existence before birth, I remember nothing. Will I be faced with the same nothing when I die?
As a Christian I hope for an eternity with God, after death.
Yet what in my experience or imagination can provide a clue to this reality? Nothing?

How do I live my life with an awareness that the present moment is an opportunity to experience the joy that comes with knowing every day is the first day, and the seriousness that comes with knowing it may be the last?

Collectively, the works shown here as End of the World form a self-portrait. Despite my absence in most of these works, I am the silent observer of each image. My work reflects on my inner being while also
relating to larger human issues such as spirituality, mental and physical entrapment, life and death.

With this installation I hope to create space for meditation and contemplation, a place where the viewer can stand alongside me and consider where we are.

Abrie Fourie 2005

Wall
Mozambique
Lambda prints on aluminium
80cm x 60cm
Detail
2002-2005

The first time I saw this building, on the road from Maputo to Xia-Xia, was at the end of 1996 on holiday with friends. As we drove past I was fascinated by the entrance flanked by majestic palm trees that spoke of past grandeur. Some years later, at the end of 2002, I went back and spent some time walking through these ruins contemplating parallel realities: a grand colonial past, whose ruins are now a home for the homeless. This bullet-ridden wall with its bricked up doorways is another kind of monument: to war, genocide, South African interference, desertion, radical change?

Yellow triptych
Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Duratrans prints
56cm x 42cm (x3)
2003-2005

Torn yellow plastic bag temporarily caught against the permanent stretch of blue sky.

Netherlands
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Duratran
56cm x 16cm
Detail
2000-2005

Netherlands is a selection of photographs taken during a residency I did in Amsterdam during the summer of 2000. For most of my stay I biked this Never Land.

Abrie Fourie’s Netherlands
Bronwyn Law-Viljoen

I hope I may be forgiven for quoting, in the opening paragraph of a short meditation on the work of a Christian photographer, the words of an arch-Nietzschean and determined disbeliever.
Here is E.M. Cioran, the twentieth-century Rumanian philosopher, ruminating on time:

Moments follow each other; nothing lends them the illusion of a content or
the appearance of a meaning; they pass; their course is not ours, we
contemplate that passage, prisoners of a stupid perception.i

Cioran’s is the rather bleak, anti-humanist vision of a thinker who fails to see how moments – fragments of time if you like – can be thought of as having any content, or even an illusion of content. This is a direct challenge to the rather worn-out notion that photography captures moments in time, an idea that is propped up by several assumptions: that moments can be caught like butterflies in a net, that our ability to catch them means that they can be separated from that great, unrelenting and undifferentiated
continuum, that the moments that we are able to seize are meaningful and, finally, that the camera – the photographer – can separate them from time precisely because they mean something. Cioran’s view, however, is that we cannot fill up the moment with meaning because it is not ours to do so. We do not own time, it flows on without us. If this is the case, where does that leave the photographer, that most
humanist of artists, whose slivers of time are an attempt to shore up hope against the threat of an
ever-encroaching scepticism?

In counterpoint to Cioran, here is the critic Thomas McEvilley remarking on Rodin’s fragment sculptures (arms, hands, heads): sometimes, says McEvilley, the fragment was for Rodin merely a “curiosity that might be shown to a visitor,” but at other times it was

not a fragment, or a tiny but perfect detail, but a wholeness that was not
tiny, not broken, not lost, simply isolated as under a conceptual
microscope so as more intently to appreciate its inexplicable yet
undeniable truth as itself.ii

It is possible, according to this worldview, to look at minutiae, at parts of things, as containing meaning. But even more than this, the artist can differentiate, can separate parts from the whole in order to appreciate more fully the truth of those parts, and, by implication, the truth of the whole from which the fragment is torn.

The work of Abrie Fourie falls somewhere between the scepticism of Cioran’s position and the humanism implicit in the belief that a fragment – of time, of an object or a body – contains a truth. In particular, Fourie’s work Netherlands tries to negotiate the divide between a kind of postmodern diffusion of form and meaning and an essentially Christian view that the centre holds.
The work, through its formal arrangement as a series of photographs along a horizontal plane in a light-box, offers us the opening, middle, and resolution of linear narrative. In other words, it holds out to us the possibility of a story, of something that begins and ends and whose meaning we can detect. But since there is no clear connection between the photographs grouped in this series, the very idea of progression is disrupted before things have even got under way.

And as if to underscore this formal and philosophical disruption, the first photograph shows a pile of broken glass. The sharp, clear lines of the glass give way, in the second image, to a study of water
running down a wall. The indistinctness of the picture is heightened by telltale vignetting – the black
shadows at each corner of the image that may be caused by imperfect optics or a filter on the lens – reminiscent of nineteenth-century photographs or those made by pin-hole cameras. The penultimate shot, an empty corner of an empty room that alludes to the work of photographers like Thomas Demand or Jeff Wall, is framed on the left by an image of a dead pigeon and a foot leaving the bottom edge of the photograph and, on the right, by a picture of a child bending over a broken beer bottle.

The greyness and the bizarre seductiveness of that empty corner where the seams of wall and floor meet, open up a space in the sequence of images from left to right. The child’s bending form is not quite enough to keep us from returning to that non-place. It has the lonely feel of a motel room, of a petrol-station bathroom. Coming after the dead pigeon, it is reminiscent of a mortuary.

But despite the fascination with death and pain to which this work bears witness, the photographer loses neither his sense of humour nor his need to resolve the problems raised by the juxtaposition of several apparently unconnected events. The shards of glass in the opening shot resolve themselves into the broken Heineken bottle in the last, and the fascinated child – Fourie’s tongue-in-cheek self-representation – has its bum pointed firmly in the direction of that mortifying grey corner.

Netherlands, like several other of Fourie’s works, is troubled by an internal contradiction. On the one hand it displays a need to apprehend the moment, the fragment, as a true thing, but on the other it eschews the neat resolutions that this position promises. Fourie is seduced, in other words, by “the illusion of content,” but at the same time, he is a deeply ironical artist, fascinated by the possibility that images may convey not content or meaning but a profound dislocation, that indeed they reveal to us the
shortcomings of perception.

i A Short History of Decay. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1949, p. 13
ii Sculpture in the Age of Doubt. New York: Allworth Press, 1999, p. 389

more/cry
New York, United States
Mpeg movies edited and written to DVD
(after Bas Jan Ader, I’m Too Sad to Tell You, 1971, black & white film)
Variable dimensions
Installed at the Museum for African Art, New York
2004

Why do we cry? And when the tears dry up, what then? While many of us shy away from exhibiting our grief publicly, I documented my emotional outbursts in the wake of a traumatic divorce. Then a while later, after having slightly healed, I watched myself dispassionately. More/Cry is a dialogue between two versions of the same self, where I both experienced and observed the cathartic effects of weeping.

cry from more/cry
Pretoria, South Africa
Video Stills (Polymer photogravure)
43cm x 38cm
2005

more from more/cry
Pretoria, South Africa
Video Stills (Polymer photogravure)
43cm x 38cm
2005




Crossing
Pretoria - Tshwane, South Africa
Lambda prints on aluminum (detail)
Dimensions variable
2003

Crossing is a collage of found images made after a collision at a crossroads on the outskirts of Pretoria. Situated between a fast-expanding informal settlement on one side and a formal, government housing settlement on the other, these crossroads are not regulated by traffic signs or lights.

I came across these fractured chairs scattered arbitrarily on the roadside. The scene reminded me of an archaeological site in that the shattered, dismembered chairs scattered across the landscape recall
skeletal remains that provide evidence of human existence. This scenario is even more evocative since six people have died here due to the authorities’ failure to safeguard this dangerous crossing.

This event and the subsequent photographs thereof had a significant impact on me. Later in America, in upstate New York during my residency at Art Omi, I decided to take this idea further.

Crossing Continued
Omi,Ghent, New York, United States
Performance/action
Dimensions variable
2004

After having made and sold some ink drawings based on the photographs, I collected enough money to purchase a number of plastic chairs identical to those I had seen at the crossroads. In an attempt to duplicate the scene of the accident, I with a few fellow artists and critics (some pacifists refused to participate, while others like Kirsty Tinkler, Olu Oguibe and Rubén Gutiérrez jumped at the opportunity to expend some testosterone) manually smashed the chairs. This enactment added another level to the happening, raising the question of whether art, and the expense implicit in the creation thereof, can be justified in the face of social
deprivation and poverty.

Re-enacting a South African event brought this issue to the fore, as the price of a plastic chair (bought for the sole purpose of breaking it in the name of art) may equal the weekly income of an unemployed South African living below the bread line. It was in a spirit of self-conscious irony that this boisterous enactment took place. A further irony transpired in that during the controlled re-enactment of an accident, another kind of accident occurred, namely that I sustained an injury to the head caused by a plastic projectile of my own making.

In Mexico, a few weeks later, Rubén Gutiérrez and myself drove out into the desert, which resembles parts of the South African landscape.


There I continued the tradition, this time only smashing one chair, which, in this particular context, was all that was required.

The theme of the Mexican show was the “residue of actions.” And so the remains of the smashed chair were mounted haphazardly (unplanned) and installed.

where-we-r
Geneva, Switzerland
Lambda print
95cm x 125cm
Detail
2005

This image shows me lying prostrate in front of the Reformer’s Monument in Geneva. Built in 1909 to commemorate Geneva’s role in the Protestant Reformation, the wall features the four great figures of the movement: Guillaume Farel, one of the first to preach the Reformation in Geneva; John Calvin, the "pope" of the reformers; Théodore de Bèze, first rector of the Academy and John Knox, founder of Presbyterianism in Scotland.

Located at the crossroads of important communication roads linking the Mediterranean Sea to the North of Europe, Geneva was an important place of exchange, ideas and trade. My ritualistic prostration, reminiscent of Muslim worship, seems to be at odds with Presbyterian reserve. But is it, and should it be? The body’s form can only allude to what lies in the heart. The image evokes a private experience of praise and humility that defies categories, and indicates a devotion that is more than skin deep.

Solitary confinement
Sion, Switzerland
Lambda print on aluminium
95cm x 125cm
Detail
2003

This abstract image is a fragment of a room in the prison in Sion, Switzerland used for the solitary
confinement of prisoners. The anonymity and ambiguity of this image lend themselves to personal interpretation and response, while the title suggests greater, more universal human issues, alluding to hope, despair, freedom and power.

These are a series of photographs taken in Sion Prison, Switzerland in 2003 and then translated into polymer photogravures at the Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, Belgium in 2005.

feet, where-we-r
Sion, Switzerland
Polymer photogravure
43cm x 38cm
Detail
2005

court, where-we-r
Sion, Switzerland
Polymer photogravure
43cm x 38cm
Detail
2005

exit, where-we-r
Sion, Switzerland
Polymer photogravure
Dimensions: 43cm x 38cm
Detail
2005

Apart from on television and in the media, one seldom experiences an insider’s perspective of prison. Here I was met with the prisoner’s day to day environment. The strangeness of the place affected me, eliciting a private nostalgia; the curious details, the insidious solitude, the soft light falling on silent polished floors.

Sea of glass
Sandton, South Africa
Duratrans
30cm x 40cm (x50)
2005

“Also before the throne, what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal” *
This description of the sublime, heavenly realm on which God’s throne stands is taken from the Book of Revelation. It forms part of a longer visual metaphor describing the heavenly abode. The majesty and !1beauty of this place remains ultimately incomprehensible to the human mind, so the sea of glass is a mysterious, elusive phenomenon, a beautiful clue.
Sea of Glass (Sandton, Johannesburg) is a visual allusion to the metaphor.
Occurring in the real world, in a Johannesburg dumpster replete with cigarette butts, cans and assorted debris, this “sea” of shattered glass drew my attention, recalling the magnificent vision of Revelation, but also reminding me of the double-edged sword of material existence, where spirit and matter are bound to each other. Ordinary, yet somehow mystical, this glittering, transparent substance is also volatile: it can cut, slice, sever. It is expressive both of an unearthly beauty and a fragile mortality.

Capturing Images Trapped Between the Ordinary and the Sublime
Laurie Ann Farrell

Have you ever travelled with a photographer? If so, you know about the frequent pauses and stops made along your route to capture images of the sidewalk, a leaf, a cloud floating past – elements that most pedestrians overlook. You begin to provision for additional time to reach destinations as a way of acknowledging that the artist’s eye never rests. Abrie Fourie is an artist whose acumen reveals a close attention to the details in our everyday surroundings that most of us fail to notice. Fourie shoots hundreds of images each day. He then carefully edits this pool down to construct a visual vocabulary that resonates with issues seminal to his outlook on life.

Born in 1969, Fourie grew up with one eye turned towards the socio-political realities of Pretoria and the other towards the music and popular culture of the 1980s. His imagery articulates a mature reconciliation of these disparate influences. Images are choreographed into series and strings of photographic installations that elevate views of the seemingly mundane to the profound. Fourie is drawn to the way photographs can embody emotions and traces of moments and more enduring life experiences. Equipped with two or more cameras on any given day, he carefully surveys his surroundings – always looking for shots which will later function as mnemonic devices.

Fourie’s life has included higher education in fine arts and curatorial studies, a tour of duty in the military, marriage, fatherhood, and international travel as an artist – all in the context of a deep spiritual grounding. He credits Pretoria Tecknikon mentor and friend Andreas Schönfeldt with helping him develop his artistic vision and his role as an art educator. Historic sources of artistic inspiration include Beuys, Kiefer, Pollock, Rothko and Twombly, while recent influences range from the conceptual works of Boshoff to the graphic virtuosity of Kentridge.

In 2003, Fourie won the Brett Kebble photography award for his breathtakingly beautiful interior of a holding cell in a Swiss prison. Images such as Solitary Confinement (2003) bend the limits of digital pixilation in the creation of an oversized encapsulation of silence and solitude. While pictures like this suggest an allegiance to the school of blurry photography which has flooded the art market in recent years, Solitary Confinement evades this category through its conceptual point of departure. His interest lies in creating meditative settings where viewers can project themselves into the space and come out with their own sense of meaning. Moreover, the works envelop aesthetics as a means of communicating larger messages. Artists such as Constable and the photographer Ansel Adams employed images of clouds in their work to arouse an emotional response in the spectator. Fourie’s cloud series have been created over an extended period of time and in different locations using colored bags and sacks caught in barbed-wire fencing. Usually photographed as dynamic forms dancing in the breeze, against a cloud-filled sky, Fourie’s billowy forms meld beauty and waste. These new clouds also suggest abstract properties of spiritual transcendence. By mounting these works on aluminum to accentuate the sparkling quality of light refraction in clouds, Fourie has developed a technique of constructing these images which stays true to the dynamic movement and ethereal qualities occurring in nature.

Similarly, Sea of Glass (2005) recycles images culled from the artist’s surroundings into crests and waves of flowing glass. Assembled through a series of light-box details, the installation suggests a tranquility interrupted by the potential danger implied by the sharp, jagged edges of broken glass. Shot in a dumpster in Johannesburg, Fourie’s body of water provides the viewer with a peaceful visual sanctuary, a silent space for meditation. Simultaneously beautiful and barbed, these constructed images are the lingua franca of Fourie’s work and access metaphors that exist between secular and spiritual realms.

Wall (2002-2005) presents a grand, forgotten building in Mozambique that stands as a reminder to a colonial era gone by. This structure has been stripped of its functionality, but remains like a beautiful scar in the landscape. Delicate purple flowers growing in the weeds in the foreground create a poetic juxtaposition between the decay of the past and the subtle potential for growth and regeneration of the present. Fourie reminds us that beauty can be found in unexpected places. The formal composition of the photograph illustrates these points without the need for a deeper understanding of the history of the building, or area.

In 2004, Fourie had a solo exhibition at the Museum for African Art in New York. End of the World brought together video, photographic installations and his hallmark Duratrans light-box works in an intimate project space. A print of the artist lying prostrate in front of the Reformer’s Monument in Geneva entitled where-we-r (2003) prompted important links between formal beauty and spiritual transcendence. An oversized light-box triptych of Cape Point juxtaposed with a two-channel video installation of the artist in a state of unrelenting catharsis provides clues into parallels between the external beauty of a vision captured at the edge of the world and the process of finding solace after a devastating divorce. Collectively the works simulated a self-portrait of the artist and provided reflective spaces for viewers.

Abrie Fourie has not shied away from expressing the spiritual grounding which lies behind his works. While he doesn’t force his religious doctrine onto the viewer, he does provide an honest statement about the forces which motivate his work. This willingness to be open and upfront about the content of his work, coupled with a high level of dedication to his craft, sets Fourie apart from his contemporaries. He produces at a prolific rate, yet remains selective about which exhibitions and projects to participate in.

In the song Pictures of You, Robert Smith of The Cure sings “I've been looking so long at these pictures of you that I almost believe that they're real.” Abrie Fourie creates compelling images that bring us into his world and share a piece of his soul. He transports us to spaces where we have an opportunity to confront our own feelings about the world and the way we live. And unlike the lovelorn Smith crooning about lost love and opportunity, Fourie constructs a world of hope and promise, one frame at a time.

Charge
Tshwane, South Africa
Lambda prints on aluminium (detail)
56cm x 74cm (x4)
2004

While waiting in the charge room at the Sunnyside Police Station in Tshwane to report a crime, I noticed the walls.
They seemed to be a silent testimony to the history of the room and those who passed through it.

This catalogue was produced for a solo exhibtion at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2006. For full catalogue and print editions contact: skilpad@mweb.co.za (South Africa) themiraclefilter@earthlink.net (United States)