Dina Danish (1981, FR/ EG)
Shmina Shmanish
12 March - 16 April 2011
Jeanine Hofland Contemporary Art proudly presents Shmina Shmanish, the first
solo exhibition of Egyptian artist Dina
Danish (1981, FR/EG) at the gallery.
The title of the exhibition, Shmina
Shmanish, bends the artist’s name into
the Yiddisch tradition of adding -shm
to the beginning of a word to indicate
irony, derision or skepticism towards
the subject. This interest in absurdity, misunderstanding, mistranslation and superstition is a strongly recurring theme in
Danish’ art practice, which combines
a conceptual art’s preoccupation with
language and structure.
A great influence to Danish’ work is
the Greek mythology of Procrustes,
which has been used by Jacques Derrida
as criticism on structural forms. Procrustes was known for attacking people,
stretching them, and cutting off parts
of their legs in order to fit them on
an iron bed. Here standardization and
sameness are put into question.
Danish is interested in this idea in its
visual as well as its literary sense.
It is in fact the perverted obsession
with standardization that fuels some of
the artist’s ideas.
Her main focus is on the frustrated need
to violently and constantly re-create
a specific structure, resulting to a
standard unchangeable form. Because of
Procrustes unnatural violent acts, the
result is always crippling and therefore resulting to failure. Danish’ work
does not attempt to achieve sameness,
but rather shows the failure of it in
a rather critical deconstructionalist
manner.
possibly count on their own, as well
as questioning the importance of their
existence as an entity.
In this way
Danish forces a connection on the basis of the numbers with an intentional
disregard to the content of the books.
In regards to the latter Danish addresses two subjects in this exhibition; one is different ways of counting and the other subject is direction,
space and time.
Direction, Space And Time
In Continue, Sun! (2010), Danish folded
light sensitive paper and exposed it
to the sun. The result was that the
sun would bleach the folded parts, and
the covered parts would remain with the
original color of the paper. Once the
paper is unfolded, a geometric shape is
created. However, because it is unfolded and thanks to daylight, the shape
and original color continues to slowly
disappear. This is because of the paper
being entirely exposed to the sun and
the acidic-based color of it. The title
Continue, Sun!, is given to this piece
as an instruction to the sun to change
the color of the paper. Thus, the intention of this work is to create a two
dimensional time-based image.
Moreover, the work Stop, Sun! (2010),
is a re-creation of Continue, Sun!,
instead through painting the shape of
Continue, Sun!. Because the form is
painted, the color of this paper does
not change throughout time. Here the
intention is that it remains as a memory or a still image of the time-based
Continue, Sun!. The title Stop, Sun!
given to this piece attempts to give an
instruction to the sun to stop changing
the image of the paper.
During the time of the exhibition of
this diptych, one can witness the subtle changes between them, which take
place on a daily basis. Given time, one
will see the materiality of each one
becoming less identical to one another.
The work titled So I Got This Paper,
And Then I copied Its Lines onto Another Paper, And Then I Made Mistakes,
And Then I Copied The Mistakes Onto
The Other Paper, And Then I Got A Ruler, And Then I Copied The Lines With
The Ruler and Then…, (2010) plays on a
similar concept of the aforementioned
work. The title of the work serves to
act as a never-ending attempt to give
Different Ways Of Counting
In the video Counting (Dac Dac Dactylonomy) (2010) Danish tries to accomplish
all the possibilities of counting from
one to five with all its different combinations, using only one hand. Here,
she engages with the idea of translating
numbers into physical movements, namely
Dactylonomy. This word, which simply
means finger counting, the artist uses
in a stuttering manner to also show the
actual verbal as well as physical frustrating difficulty of performing this
act. Some of these movements are almost
impossible and painful to physically
perform, while others project differences between cultural understandings
of dactylonomies. For example, in some
cultures, when asked to show the hand
gesture of the number three, the thumb,
index and middle fingers are stretched,
while in other places the same number
is gestured by stretching the index,
middle and ring fingers.
Don’t Start a Sentence with Numerals
(2011) takes on one of the rules of numerals when writing. As the first word
of the sentence is a digit – the chapter number - this strict rule is applied through deleting the text of the
first page in each chapter, and replacing it with numerals. The attempt is
also to try and count from the number
of the chapter to the number of the
same page, and have this replace the
content or any sentences.
The Things That Count (2011) is an
ongoing project of collecting books,
which title would include a number from
zero to ten. The title indicates the
presence of found objects that could
instructions and explanations on how
to create sameness. On a more a philosophical note, the never endlessness
on the attempt to create sameness makes
the Procrustesian crippling failure
more visible. Although Danish strives
for continuous correction, the machine
made and the human made remain distinguishable.
Karma Chameleon, You Come And Go (2011)
which is also a title of a song by Boy
George, plays on the physical and the
grammatical aspect of the words HERE
and THERE. By using an overhead projector to manipulate the words from here
to there, the audience can physically
choose to be here or there, to come and
go. On a physical level, the audience
can manipulate the two words through
either the presence or absence of
light. Choosing to block the light of
the projector, would result to the word
HERE, while taking distance from the
light would result to the word THERE.
The words here and there then become
one entity, a chameleon, constantly
changing from here to there and from
there to here. On a grammatical level,
which can be explained in the title of
the piece, the two words are location
adverbs and can be easily explained
when using the two following sentences:
Here you come; There you go. These two
examples indicate the understanding of
direction in relation to the distance
of the subject.
In the video Type Sonata (2011), an
Arabic and an English typewriter is
used in such a way to manifest the two
different directions of the machines.
The attempt is to simultaneously type
a line from right to left, and a line
from left to right. Because of the way
they are set up next to each other, the
two objects move slowly until they finally hit each other. This physically
frustrating action is repeated a few
times, until the imperfect “Sonata of
lines” is fulfilled. The result is the
production of two scores, Type Sonata:
Clef de Sol (2011) –the lines typed
with the right hand-, and Type Sonata:
Clef de Fa (2011) – the lines typed
with the left hand.
1.
Type Sonata, 2011
single-channel video
4’56”
2.
Type Sonata: Clef de Sol,
2011
ink on paper
23.5x32.5
3.
Type Sonata: Clef de Fa,
2011
ink on paper
23.5x32.5
4.
Continue, Sun!, 2010
sun on paper
63x83
5.
Stop, Sun!, 2010
oil on paper
63x83
6. / 7.
So I Got This Paper, And
Then I copied Its Lines
Onto Another Paper, And
Then I Made Mistakes, And
Then I Copied The Mistakes Onto The Other Paper, And Then I Got A
Ruler, And Then I Copied
The Lines With The Ruler
and Then…, 2010
Ink on paper
43x52 (each)
8.
Counting (Dac Dac Dactylonomy), 2010
single-channel video
5’5”
9.
Before and After, 2010
Pencil and ink on paper
42x33 cm
10.
Karma Chameleon, You Come
And Go, 2011
overhead projector,ink,
pencil installation
variable dimensions
11.
Don’t Start a Sentence
with Numerals:
One to three
two to twelve
three to twenty-two
four to twenty-nine
five to thirty-seven
2011
white-out and ink on paper
23.5x32.5
12.
The Things That Count,
2011
collected books
variable dimensions