A call to arms with, in the place of bullets, love that, like art, represents a powerful instrument of change, helping change the world “one perception at a time”. Invoking this, the mystic artist, part shaman, part alchemist, punk and poet, Kendell Geers. The South African artist and activist offers the public at the M77 the exhibition OrnAmenTumEtKriMen, curated by Danilo Eccher. It is an itinerary conceived as a dialogue with the interiors of the gallery itself where, in an encounter between various materials of notable impact thanks to a shrewd use of colours and motifs, the beliefs most dear to the observer are dismantled, immersed in an environment that, despite its apparent beauty, reveals itself as rather inhospitable and even potentially dangerous. The title of the exhibition dedicated to the artist who struggled against apartheid comes from an essay from 1908 entitled Ornament and Crime by Austrian architect Adolf Loos. This modern pioneer of architecture railed against ornaments on the facades of buildings, considering them useless, even dangerous, orienting architecture more towards the concept of functionality. For M77, Geers is a cultural heir to Loos, investigating the languages of minimalism and the model of the White Cube Gallery, hurling aesthetics against a brick wall. Personal and political stories, poetry and misery, violence and erotic tension characterise the works of Geers who uses daily objects to go beyond the limits in performances and videos, relying on a continuous juxtaposition of materials, from bricks to neon, then on to painting as well.
