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In the asymmetrical space of a gallery, behind a large windowpane, six distinct works seem to have exploded from an imaginary centre. They have landed on the floor, on tilted plinths, on the walls. There is no sound to acknowledge such founding event, and the eyes move quickly from one work to the other, buzzing with questions. It’s like reading a Dada poem in your head, lips sealed, playful smile across your face.
Mădălina Zaharia’s new installation at Tintype Gallery in London certainly draws quite a bit on her personal cultural legacy. The two important elements are: the Dadaist love of the absurd, and the absurd use of images and sound in early post-communist adverts. One absurd takes over the other, and the game begins.
The starting point of the installation is an early 1990s commercial whose jingle Zaharia writes down as Psst. Psst. Cheeky. Cheeky. Kltz. Pmz. AAAAA! Although this sound has remained in every Romanian’s memory, the artist asked around and came to realise that no-one could remember the product it was linked to. The jingle had failed its mission.
This dissociation between “form” and “content” amused her and led her to explore the new absurd of the society of consumption. In the same way that the ad broke down into sound and image, she created a separate work for each of the 5 sounds in the ad. Each work would propose an inner dissociation, and simultaneously be part of an absurd and explosive installation. Hence, each piece attempts to show sound, either in formal or relational terms. Of course, nothing can actually be heard.
First, there is the gesture behind a sound. A gesture is an abstract image. A video piece displayed on a triangle plinth shows the sound Ktz! Its origin is the triangle in the corner of the mouth made when pronouncing the sound. The video, shot at an angle, shows a model holding a triangle structure, whilst the same structure holds the real-life TV set.
More images were obtained after google-ing the word “wedge”. The colored shapes punctuate them, like in early abstract cinema or more directly in the work of the Memphis Group, a 1980s design group. These multiple connections and analogies account for the playful, late 80s/early 90s look of the whole show.
Second comes the literal transcription of the word – for the sound Cheeky-Cheeky! the work is a composition made of a photograph of a cheek and a print of the letter E.
But how does one search sound on the internet? After deciding on Pmz as the phonetic representation of another sound in the ad, Zaharia once again turned to Google to find out what these letters might stand for. “Partially melted zone”, “Poor men’s zope”… any words could have been used. So she chose to put forward her own random combination: plinths – mountains – zips. These shapes mounted on the wall look like a form of shortwriting.
A third option is to visualise sound as onomatopoeia – without reaching the level of representation. Psssst! is shown by an elongated shape on the floor, suggesting the seemingly never-ending S. A card inserted in the body of the sculpture articulates the sound and functions like the letters P and T. The small gesture shown on the card is the letter T in sign language, but it is also a rude gesture able to pervert meaning.
Finally, Zaharia takes the sound as such and considers its narrative possibilities. AAAAA! is shown in a cause and response logic, putting together a blue spill at the basis of a plinth and the reaction as it is inscribed in an open book on the plinth – progressive lines of the letter A. This is taken even further with a subtle analogy. A music score, available to take away, represents the diagram in the book put into sound – the AAAAA! elongates one sound at time.
The one work that doesn’t respond to a particular sound functions like a comment of the entire show. It is a print composed of a cut-out, the shapes taken from El Lissitzky’s Story of the Two Squares, more precisely the moment in the story when an explosion takes place. Through the holes one sees an image from a magazine about traditional Romanian holidays. In a sense, Zaharia imagines that the repetition of the catchphrase – back when it was made and ever since – became like a tradition.
“I need stories to make it happen”, the artist confesses. In this show, things seem to happen on the surface: the formal qualities of the individual works are what lead the viewer to compose relationships between them. Memory guides the viewer from one work to the other, and from the entire installation to its starting point – that empty space in the middle, where form and content do not coincide.
by Cristina Bogdan
All images courtesy of the artist.
Mădălina Zaharia | Kltz. Pmz. Aaaaaa!
November 6 – December 7, 2013
Tintype Gallery London