Burqas, Poltergeist and Jim Carrey: Kate Weir reviews the new Rashid Rana show at Lisson Gallery.
If the Impressionists had been trying to portray their TV sets during a heavy storm rather than the floral vistas of Southern France, they probably would have come up with something similar to Rashid Rana’s works at Lisson Gallery: huge collages of decimated photographs, assembled so that from a distance they resemble the result of a decidedly buggered aerial. Staring at them, I feel rather like the little girl in Poltergeist.
Much like the plot of Poltergeist, Rana’s work challenges the “gulf between representation and reality” using fragments of two-dimensional photographic images on sculptural structures: such as trompe l’oeil pixellated photos of piles of books printed onto aluminium blocks; and a large mirrored cube which flexes to distort the reality surrounding it.
This mix of structure and distortion, and chaos within rigid grid patterns, leads the viewer to question the viability of what they see and critiques misinformed and misguided attempts to integrate Western ideas of modernisation into countries where tradition is heavily ingrained into the culture.
Rana, who hails from Pakistan, has previously tackled issues such as the representation of women in the West and the East (respectively, ‘pornography’ and ‘burqas’ according to his photomontages) and the impact of globalisation.
His ‘TV static’ collages are an effective metaphor for the breakdown in communication and loss of meaning in translation, whilst the pixellated sculptures are an intriguing way of showing the flimsy nature of rapid-fire digitised media. Rana looks to question the relevance of cultural iconography when seen in a global context – a pixellated photosculpture of a pile of bricks is perhaps a nice little dig at Carl Andre’s controversial Equivalent VIII (better known as that pile of bricks at the Tate).
One of the most impressive pieces is an installation comprised of photographs of buildings and street scenes in Pakistan, formed into an almost lenticular structure of a New York-style skyline. Through the combination of technical precision with organic materials, Rana deftly presents the marriage of the chaotic and colourful with large-scale urbanisation.
This exhibition proves that the photomontage can still have gravitas even after being popularised by Jim Carrey’s gurning mug. Perhaps railing against the spuriously engendered space of media representation using a postmodern medium is a tad disingenuous, but Rana uses static and distortion to present a clear message, and in doing so has succeeded from his smallest fragment of image right through to the bigger picture.
Rashid Rana is at Lisson Gallery until 30th April 2011.
Click here to see all London exhibitions.
Click here for things to do in London.
Return to Spoonfed's London Art homepage.
Add an event
Frieze Art Fair to launch new section for young galleries in 2012
Frieze have today announced details for the 2012 edition, their tenth art fair in London. Taking place...