Kerim Seiler

Pneuma involves a scale and embodiment of sculpture somewhat more between nature, the body and built structure - rooftops, mountain summits, yards of half-built palaces, cities and rural areas. Its narrative (if it has one singular story) is one of the collaborative journey, not a quest, but a vacation in South Africa, in late summer (a fugitive from the last of the European winter). That the work finds itself in many in-betweens is an index of this country's long history of displacements - from town to rural homeland, from city to township, location and informal settlement, from backyard shack to Arts centre. In each instance the gap is never filled, just highlighted, with a molecular structure somewhere between neon signage and a weird cubist split-pole tent, all at a scale between the figure, the hand-made and the site, whether a natural or built environment. It appears and then disappears as quickly. This is not a difficult, consuming work, its challenge is the transport of its parts - by foot often, to high places, with the help of friends. Each site requires negotiation with brokers or Chiefs, or patrons, and some offer a space for interaction, for joining. That is the performance. (And it does not appear as evidence in the photographs.) Bettina Malcomess