Crumple (Jeanette Schoon) , 2021 was incorporated into the Constitution Court of South Africa's art collection in September 2022 and stands proudly at the foot of the Great African Steps, on Constitution Hill Johannesburg.
This sculpture speaks of care and retrieval, violence and protection, just as it offers the viewer an opportunity to relish its colours and surfaces and to be carried away in a sensory experience. Painted as much as it is sculpted, the work pushes the limits of these media and tells us that something doesn't need to be flat and hang on a wall to be a painting, nor monochromatic in patina to be a sculpture.
Crumple (Jeanette Schoon) is also an homage to the late anti-apartheid activist Jeanette Schoon, who, together with her six-year-old daughter Katryn, was killed by a parcel bomb while living in exile in Angola in 1984. Sent by Craig Williamson, a supposed family friend, the letter had been addressed to her husband, Marius Schoon, but Jeanette opened it while busy in her kitchen. Her death was symbolic of the incursion of the struggle into all spheres of life, including "women's spaces": the home, the kitchen.
The proportions of the sculpture suggest both an explosion and an exuberant resurrection. It recalls an act of terrible violence, but also offers hope for repair and care. It's a feminist symbol of hope and power in violent times.
The piece is also rich in allusions to the work of other artists. The colour treatment brings to mind the painting installations of German artist Katharina Grosse, and the material, crumpled aluminium sheets, recalls John Chamberlain's sculptures made of crushed car bodies. Closer to home, residents of Johannesburg will recognise in the work an echo of William Kentridge and Gerard Marx's "Firewalker".
Crumple (Jeanette Schoon) (2021) is the second of Hedwig Barry's monumental outdoor "crumple" sculptures, an emergent series of large-scale sculptures conceived for outdoor environments. Made out of crumpled and welded aluminium sheets, these works are meticulously painted using automotive spray paint.The first work in the series, simply titled Crumple (2020), was commissioned for the BMW South Africa Headquarters in Midrand, where it is permanently installed.
Anthea Buys
Hedwig Barry
The more you feel the more you know
2020
oil on canvas
42 x 30 cm
Ramify
70 x 100 cm
ink, soft pastel and oil paint on Fabriano paper
Dapple Forage Dapple
2021
100 x 70 cm
Gouache, glitter, ink and pastel on on Fabriano paper
Framed
Home Is Where the Heart Is I
(from the Lockdown series)
2020
Inks, acrylic, spray and oil paint, pastel on paper
Paper size: 320 x 451 mm
Frame size: 360 x 492 mm
(framed) Black aluminium box frame
works on canvas
Hedwig Barry
To the South
2023
Oil on canvas
60 1/5 × 48 in
153 × 122 cm
Hedwig Barry
Day Falling Backwards into Velvet Night
2024
Oil on canvas
Frame included
31 1/2 × 23 3/5 in
80 × 60 cm
US$2,200
1/7
Through a collaboration between Wits and BMW, Hedwig Barry was commissioned by BMW to create two large-scale outdoor interventions for the BMW campus in Midrand, South Africa. Both art commissions - the “Crumple” and “Love Letter for Lost Travellers” were completed in early 2021.
These works are about the relationships between the personal and the public, the emotional and the intellectual, and about the bodies, grounds, materials, desires and gestures which give meaning to these relationships. Barry always explores these relationships through a feminist aesthetic of repair.
Process videos of the making of the works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSs0YxZ2Q20&themeRefresh=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ntSA82oABU
Image shows fellow artists
Tshung Hui Lauren Lee, Themba Mwasa, Michaela Wenzel, Hedwig Barry, Prof David Andrew from Wits University's Wits School of Arts and Shayna Rosendorff.