Within the squirming vortex of Rachel Kneebone’s sculptures you can find change, death, growth, renewal, and lust. The hive-like activity inside the works makes me feel cautious. It looks dangerous. It looks like individuals sacrificing themselves to mutate into one massive omni-organism. I wonder what kind of noise the sculptures would make if the figures started to open their mouths and vocalize.
Above image: Rachel Kneebone in exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, 2012. Photograph courtesy of the museum.
Destruction and growth hang in equal measures in the sculptures. As you approach The Descent (2008) you see a few figures standing together in a circle. Closer, you realize it’s a pit and there are many, many figures tossing themselves headlong into it. As you look deeper into the pit the figures lose their definition and become pools of flesh, mixing together. The figures standing along the rim don’t appear to have any second thoughts or doubt about the metamorphosis they’re witnessing. They seem prepared to thoughtlessly throw their sense of self away to join the thing growing at the bottom of the pit. Reason isn’t here. They’re driven by impulse. The piece is inspired by Rodin’s The Gates of Hell and Dante. The connection to the Inferno goes beyond the architecture of the pit. The damned in Inferno are similarly self-destructive and those Ipcts are more of an impulse than a choice.
Rachel Kneebone, The Descent, 2008, 3.5 x 1.5 meters, porcelain. Photograph by Stephen White, courtesy of White Cube. Click to see a larger image.
The Descent (detail). Click to see a larger image.
The Descent (detail).
I’m afraid that I could be one of them. The suggestion of impulse means that I could be behaving like these figures without being aware of it. Little thoughtless behaviors could be pooling inside of me and one day they could rise up, flood my reason and drive me to join an unknown entity that consumes and destroys even as it creates. If it’s Hell it’s not a hell that happens to you, it’s a hell that you become a part of, a hell that wraps you into its structure and uses you to grow.
Rachel Kneebone, We Get Life from Putrefaction and Death, 2014, porcelain, 63.5 x 57.5 x 76.4 centimeters. Photograph by Stephen White, courtesy of White Cube.
My own anxieties about masses of people and free will informed a lot of the above reading, but there are cues that the metamorphosis may not be as annihilating as it seemed at first. Last year Kneebone participated in Lust for Life (Stockholm, February 26 – April 18, 2015) at Galleri Andersson/Sandström and her works there seem more disarming, even erotic (even though I feel strange saying that, lousy Midwestern upbringing). There’s one sculpture in particular that removes the mindlessness of Descent and instead shows the figures morphing together for a shared purpose. We Get Life From Putrefaction and Death (2014) doesn’t flinch as a title. It demands that you sacrifice a little positivity before you can understand what is otherwise an auspicious message. This time the mass of body parts are assembled to push a perfect white sphere into the air. It’s a simple goal, but I’m comforted by the idea there may be design and intent in the midst of so much chaos. (Is that a crutch? Probably).
Rachel Kneebone, The Paradise of Despair, 2011, porcelain, 37 3/8 x 23 5/8 x 24 7/16 inches. Photograph by Stephen White, courtesy of White Cube.
In 2012 Kneebone exhibited alongside the great Auguste Rodin at the Brooklyn Museum. Rachel Kneebone: Regarding Rodin (January 27 – August 12, 2012) saw the artist selecting 15 Rodin works from the museum’s collection and pairing them with eight of her own porcelain sculptures. The museum states that the exhibition highlighted “the artists’ shared interest in the representation of mourning, ecstasy, death, and vitality in figurative sculpture.” The installation also balanced Rodin’s darker forms against the gleaming white of Kneebone’s porcelain. Of Kneebone’s work in the show, I’m drawn to another sculpture that pairs something auspicious with an almost absurdly grim title, The Paradise of Despair (2011) shows more figures combining, but it’s not in a heap or a formless pile of goo. Instead, they’re assembling themselves into a tower. It’s a little lopsided, suggesting that this is a snapshot of a process that has not been completed yet. It’s forward momentum, done with intent. If there’s sacrifice, at least it was for a purpose. Squeezed between the opposing forces of paradise and despair, the figures decided to reach for something beyond the selfish concerns of their own bodies.
Rachel Kneebone, Beauty is Always an Act of Love For Life Even in the Midst of Despair and Negation, 2014, porcelain, 56 x 76 x 60 centimeters. Photoraph by Stephen White, courtesy of White Cube.
Rachel Kneebone was born in 1973 in Oxfordshire. She graduated in 1997 from U.W.E Bristol. In 2004 she obtained her MA in sculpture from the Royal College of Art in London. She was awarded the MaxMara Art Prize for Women in 2005. In addition to the above exhibitions, she’s shown in Brooklyn, London, Miami and Rotterdam.
Bill Rodgers is the Managing Editor of cfile.daily.
What do you think of Rachel Kneebone’s contemporary ceramic art? Let us know in the comments.
Rachel Kneebone installation view at “Regarding Rodin.”
Auguste Rodin, Pierre de Wissant, Monumental, 1887; cast 1979, bronze, 84 5/8 x 46 x 39 inches. Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.
Exhibition catalog, “Regarding Rodin.”
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