In June this year former basketball player Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea, the latest in a string of recent visits to the diplomatically isolated nation. His first in 2013 included a meeting with leader and basketball fan Kim Jong-un in which they bonded over an exhibition game held in Pyongyang featuring several former Harlem Globetrotters. Rodman’s 2017 call-in was concurrent with a climate of increasing hostility between the United States and the rogue nation, prompting The Washington Post to speculate that Donald Trump had personally sent the celebrity to forge a diplomatic backchannel.
Sam Cranstoun, Power Structures I, 2017, oil on board, 60 x 80cm. Courtesy the artist and Sohphie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne
This ‘brave new world’ of international diplomacy, with its reality TV spin and tabloid denial, sets a surreal tone for Sam Cranstoun’s solo exhibition ‘Power Structures’. This show, his first at Sophie Gannon Gallery, provides dizzying visual juxtapositions that suggest hidden narratives are behind the accepted stories of history’s strongmen – prompting us to consider whether truth is stranger than fiction.
Several paintings in this series allude to the mysterious friendship between Rodman and Kim. The composition of these works highlights their grounding in collage: in Power Structures IX (2017) a Nike basketball partially conceals an image of Kim Jong-un descending an aeroplane staircase, while Power Structures VI (2017) depicts Rodman in a victory pose in front of a basketball court, his figure cropped at the thighs.
Sam Cranstoun, Power Structures III, 2017, oil on board, 60 x 80cm. Courtesy the artist and Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne
Cranstoun says it is “a deliberate shift in my practice”. While previous bodies of work have narrowed in on a particular historical event or topic, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy Jr. or the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the source material for ‘Power Structures’ emerged from a “digital archive of several tens of thousands of images” he had collected over time. He explains, “for this series of works, I decided to limit myself to my pre-existing archive – using the images that I had collected, however disparate and seemingly random, to assemble a series of collaged images. These collages, considering both the content as well as the formal properties of each image, are designed to act almost like Rorschach tests, allowing the viewer to bring his or her own meaning to each image.”
Sam Cranstoun, Power Structures VII (flag of Japan), 2017, oil on board, 107 x 69cm. Courtesy the artist and Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne
The finely worked surfaces of these new oil paintings recall the pixilation of the digital source material, drawing attention to the visual texture of his subject matter. Power Structures I (2017) depicts German bodybuilder Gunter Schlierkamp flexing against a background of pink roses, the muscular tension and fake-tan polish of his figure contrasted against the luscious blooms. Several works in the series show classical portrait busts suspended against a background of waves or constellations of stars, the expertly sculpted now-crumbling marble held in juxtaposition to the ever-shifting splendour of natural phenomena. Another work depicting the official portrait of Brigadier General Robin Olds restores the famed American fighter pilot to the skies following his turbulent post-Vietnam military career.
Cranstoun’s painterly rendering of these collaged compositions provides a further layer of artifice to their widely disseminated source material, ironically and in our time of ‘fake news’, inviting the viewer to scrutinise their surfaces for what fact or fiction lies beneath.
Eleanor Zeichner is a writer from Sydney and current Assistant Curator at UTS Gallery.
Sophie Gannon Gallery
Until 7 October, 2017
Melbourne
