I’ve covered the art of Manoji Yachvili (formerly Onceagain, now Nomore) on numerous occasions in this blog, as I have with many of the exhibitions at her formerly public Onceagain gallery. So I was a little surprised to hear (through the grapevine, at least) that she had taken the decision to withdraw somewhat from the SL art world, disbanding her Onceagain art group and stating she would not be exhibiting her art in-world any more.
Of course, we all reach points in our lives when we feel either a need for a radical change in our lives or work (or both), or that what we’ve been doing for so long is less the centre of our personal or creative expression, and we need to take a step back. However, we’re also free to have changes of heart within those decisions to a greater or lesser degree. So it is that Manoji/Nomore has taken up the challenge to present one more exhibition of her work, hosted by Dido Haas in the main halls of her Nitroglobus Roof Gallery.
Entitled Inventory (with the sub-title of What is Hidden Inside an Inventory), this is both something of a personal exhibition of pieces that many otherwise never have seen the light of day beyond Manoji’s eyes, and an exploration of art and the identity of the artist. It might also, to so degree, be seen as asking questions that are not only relevant to an artist, but to all of us in the modern world.
Not only finished works, but images, studies, tests, attempts, detours, forgetings. An accumulation that precedes the final form and often remains invisible. The inventory is the place where thought exceeds production, and production exceeds what is shown.
An artist thinks more than they create, and creates more than they exhibit. Of what emerges into the light, only a selected portion remains, filtered by time, context, and the gaze of others. But does what is not shown truly cease to exist?
Is it necessary for everything to be visible in order to be legitimized? The very meaning of the word “artist” lies within this tension.– From the artist’s notes accompanying of Inventory
Thus, framed around the walls of Nitroglobus we have images and pieces, some perhaps near completion, others only partially complete or abandoned experiments, all drawing on different themes yet drawn together through Manoji’s familiar use of colour. Recovered from deep within the artist’s inventory, they present insights into the range of Manoji’s art and her willingness to experiment with forms, colour and presentation.
As pieces long hidden inventory, these pieces are used to frame an initial set of questions of their existence and “legitimacy” – just because they have been buried within inventory and thus unseen, does this make them less art than those pieces which did escape inventory’s confines and openly displayed? If they remain hidden and archived, and never seen by others, does this mean they never really existed? How do questions like this reflect on the artist behind the art? That so much remained hidden somehow lessen their own status, or does the fact they are prepared to judge their own work and/or pushing it to one side enhance their artistic reputation/ability?
Beyond this, the exhibition also seems to offer a broader subtext for artists and the rest of us to consider. This can be particularly seen within the wall of Polaroid-like shots with their hashtag elements as they both encourage us to remember who we are and question things from the role of the artist through to the devil of the moment – the use of AI (which somewhat circles back to the questions of archiving raised in the artist’s notes accompanying the exhibition: yes, art might be preserved (or accidentally lost) through digital archiving, but it might also be put at risk of corruption by the devouring need of AI and its image harvesters).
Richly engaging visually, whether or not one delves into the artist’s own notes or attempts to identify potential subtexts and meanings, Inventory is a captivating exhibition – and I hope it is not forever Manoji’s last.
SLurl Details
- Nitroglobus Roof Gallery (Sunshine Homestead, rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 