Sometimes art has the ability to suck you in, spit you out and leave you feeling a little uncouth. This is exactly the note that Dani Marti hits in his solo show of sculpture and video art, Black Sun.
As the title suggests, there is darkness here, but also glowing intensity from the Spanish-born Australian artist. A new work created for this, Marti’s first solo show in WA, embodies this. Prelude 1 is a large, dense circle of customised corner cube reflectors and glass beads, tightly clustered together. It is both beautiful and disgusting as a writhing mass of dark matter.
Generally, Marti’s works are both seductively enchanting and deeply repulsive. He embraces such dualities by making art that is unashamedly visceral, highly tactile and grounded in themes of intimacy, the search for the self, sexuality and human relationships.
Referred to as baroque minimalism, the works have all the audaciousness, opulence and tension of the baroque, contained within the tight frame of minimal abstraction.
They also make use of the repetition of materials to generate a sense of not only layered density and darkness but also movement and dynamism. Works are made up of masses of beads, clusters of scourers, mounds of reflectors and tightly braided hose, polyester, nylon and leather.
As part of this material reverie, a series of abstract portraits in the main gallery are dense fields of beaded necklaces. This is a veritable costume- jewellery treasure-trove. These works hold presence in both their sheer physicality and psychological resonance.
They are part of the Mother series, an ode to the artist’s mother, a portrait of her, yet also portraits of all women, by being made up of the very personal, intimate item adorning the neck. As Marti weaves the necklaces into contemporary art minimalism, he wonders about the personal narratives inherent to each individual necklace, who they belonged to and what they meant to the given women.
The many layers, density and darkness that pervade these works offer an insight into the greater meanings attached to other works. Other woven pieces all come back to personal human emotions, relations and intimacy. The video pieces then, are more literally physically confronting.
In the video Golden Years, a man, Michael, is filmed at extreme close range as he looks at himself in a handheld mirror. The scene is a personal fetish of the man pictured; engaged in an intimate encounter with his own image. For the viewer the reflection is mostly dark, so it is like he is falling into the darkness and solitude of his own narcissism.
While seemingly distinct from the abstract works, this piece is not so far removed. It presents another form of abstraction; we only ever see the man’s face in fragments, his neck, his tongue, and are given little sense of identity.
Marti is interested in such idiosyncrasies and the perversities of human fetishes. He appears keen to expose them in such a way as to make the viewer feel as if they are right there and claustrophobic.
There is sensitivity in the way he handles his subjects, an awareness of power dynamics, while at the same time he skates at the edges of ethics. It is as though the label of art gives the licence and sanctity to transgress and initiate projects with various individuals that might otherwise be wildly problematic.
This aside, both sculpture and video, are incredibly enticing and remarkably well-crafted pieces and experiencing such existentially layered creations is well worth the disconcerting aftertaste.
Dani Marti — Black Sun runs until March 28.