Thinking with Animals
Wilma Cruise
An online showcase features the artist’s sculptures, collages, and editions over the years with the collaborating printers at David Krut Workshop at Art on Main in Johannesburg.
Below are stop-motion animations and annotations on the artworks written by Cruise herself.
A retrospective presentation of Cruise’s dedicated career as a conceptual creative, working in various mediums.
Cruise’s work explores the interaction and the conditions of communication between humankind and animals; a condition that transcends the spoken (human) word. She maintains it is not the animals who cannot speak, (and therefore cannot reason), but us who cannot listen.
"a point of departure..."
Agnes Dei Series: Lamb of God, 2005
Monoprint, 43.6 x 45 cm
R 4 600 incl. VAT
Sheep (The Dolly Suite) , 2012
Bronze Edition of 30, 60 x 80 x 20 cm
R 96 000 incl. VAT
“Sheep (The Dolly Suite) centers on the being of a sheep as a point of departure. Through it, I contemplate Descartes’ core ontological question in relation to animals. “Do they think?” – a question that has plagued philosophers from Aristotle and beyond to Heidegger, Levinas, and Lacan. The underlying assumption is that because animals are lacking the power of speech they have no capacity to reason. With The Dolly Suite I ponder the question, “Does a sheep know?” – W.C.
"through the looking glass..."
I Can(t) see (with mirror), 2015
Drypoint, 121.5 x 80 cm, Edition of 20
R 14 375 incl. VAT
I Can(t) see (with mirror), 2007
Ceramic , Height 170 cm
Private collection
“The ceramic sculpture I Can(t)
See (with mirror) is paired with a monotype
of the same name. Jacques Derrida suggests that Lewis Carroll’s
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) could be regarded as a type of mirror stage
in which case questions about the animal could be asked from the other side,
that is from the point of view of the animal (2008:8). What is required is a
shift from a humanist anthropocentric point of view to one that is more inclusive
of all animal kind.” – W.C.
Caucus 2 (White) Caucus 3 (Black), 2014
Ceramic on Steel base, Height 112 cm,
R 35 000 incl. VAT
NY.03.7 D
Silkscreen with monotype
R 4 600 incl. VAT
“Originally these figures formed part of the ‘caucus’ or group of onlookers that observed the sea of babies in the installation called Cradle. Without arms and mouths, Caucus 2 and Caucus 3, lack the agency to speak or act and can only stand on the outside and look upon the chaos and destruction of the degenerating planet.” – W.C.
"the uncooperative human..."
Louis’ Baboon, 2015
Bronze, 47 x 31 x 55 cm
Edition of 12
R 136 100 incl. VAT
The Queen, 2015
Drypoint & Chine Colle, 45 x 43. 7 cm,
Edition of 15
R 7 360 incl. VAT
Endgame, 2015
Bronze, 60 x 35 x 55 cm
Edition of 10
R 345 000 incl. VAT
The End Game, 2015
Drypoint & Chine Colle, 43.7 x 45 cm,
Edition of 15
R 7 475 incl. VAT
“Animals have entered the space of my being-in-the world. They form part of the (auto)biography that is both part of my life and inseparable from it. Although my interest in primates and primate behavior dates from my years as a young student when I embarked on undergraduate studies in primatology, my recent interest in baboons was sparked by the crisis faced by the local baboon population in the Western Cape of South Africa. Here man and animal compete for space and resources…
Word, 2015
Drypoint & Chine Colle
45 x 43. 7 cm
Edition of 15
R 7 475 incl. VAT
Heidegger’s Hand, 2015/16
Bronze
35 x 55 cm
R 148 000 incl. VAT
“…It is a microcosm of human and animal conflict in which the individual animal is often forgotten. I attempted to capture the essence of what I read as “babooness”. I focused on the individual trying to imagine his/her experience of being in a world shared by uncooperative humans. Rather than anthropomorphise the baboons, I tried to evoke an “imaginative empathy” — recognition of the emotional similarity between species.” – W.C.
Untitled (Bird with Queen), 2014-20
Drypoint, handwork & Collage
45 x 43. 7 cm
R 9 200 incl. VAT
De, 2018
Bronze
Height 38 cm
Edition of 10
R 43 700 incl. VAT
"across liminal space..."
The all-knowing Pig , 2015
Drypoint & Chine Colle
45 x 43. 7 cm
Edition of 20
R 7 360 incl. VAT
The Hybrid Piglet, 2015
Bronze
Height 105 cm
Edition of 12
POR
“In my work I have accorded the pig with the status of an outsider who knowingly observes. She smirks as if complicit in some hidden joke. Like a trickster, she stands outside of events, yet seems able to control them, or, at least to predict their outcome.
As such these pigs straddle opposing worlds – the human and the animal, the rational and affective, nature and culture, and carry their knowledge with them across the liminal space.” – W.C.
The 13th Hour XXI , 2015
Drypoint & Collage
49 x 67 cm
R 11 500 incl. VAT
The Caucus – Pig, 2012
Painted Ceramic
38 x 33 x 44 cm
Edition of 12
R 20 700 Incl. VAT
"the knowing outsiders..."
Scribble, the cat (the comma matters), 2016
Bronze
60 x 18 x 34 cm
Edition of 10
R 66 700 incl. VAT
The 13th Hour XIII, 2015-20
Drypoint
45 x 43. 7 cm
R 9 200 incl. VAT
“Cats can gaze back at us, to survey and observe us simultaneously from both the center and the periphery of our lives. As such, in my symbolic menagerie, I have granted cats the status of knowing outsiders. With a subjectivity and recognition of us as the other, the tables are turned and the habitually observed becomes the observer. This leads us to enquire: What do cats see? What do they know?” – W.C.
"grieving and hopelessness..."
NY.03.07 with palm tree, 2015
Softground etching
80.2 x 60.8 cm
R 5 405 incl. VAT
Lacrymose Circa, 1992-22
Bronze
R 91 000 incl. VAT
“This sculpture speaks of loss, grieving and hopelessness.”- W.C.
"cast from a mother mould..."
Baby, 2008
Monotype
35 x 29 cm
POR
Cradle, 2011-12
1000+ Ceramic forms
30 cm
R 1 000 incl. VAT Each
“The installation, Cradle, consisted of a number of ceramic sculptures which included over one
thousand armless doll-like forms spread across the floor of the gallery. The conceptual underpinning
of Cradle was informed by the awareness of overpopulation by the human species over which we
have no control. Cast from a mother mould, but with extremities individually sculpted, the babies
share a common origin, but much like in real life, each is individualised. All the babies are armless,
signifying a universal helplessness.”- W.C.
"being of the other..."
Chanticleer, 2016
Etching, 45 x 43. 7 cm
POR
Chanticleer, 2016
Bronze
170 x 48 x 130 cm
Sold out
“The title of this work alludes to the Grimm brothers’ tale, The Bremen Town Musicians. Chanticleer is not a literal interpretation of this story, rather it was informed by my acquaintanceship with a feisty Boston terrier, named Phoebe, whom I met in New York in 2007. The gaze between the female form and the dog, Phoebe, suggests communication that is neither necessarily friendly nor affectionate. Yet, the look implies a reciprocal recognition of the being of the other.” – W.C.
"submitting to both the burden and comfort..."
Harrismith, 2015
Drypoint & Chine Colle
45 x 43. 7 cm
R 23 000 incl. VAT
After Harrismith, 2014
Ceramic on Steel base
Height 151 cm
POR
“The ceramic sculpture After Harrismith, (2014) was modeled on the print Harrismith (the title a reference to where my maternal grandparents lived in the Free State) (2007-2014). It depicts a human female figure around whose neck is draped a large cat.
The cat both presses into the head of the figure and appears to grow out of it. The figure bows her head submitting to both the burden and comfort of the self-satisfied cat. The cat in After Harrismith, is more the subject, the one in charge than the human object who submits to her presence.
Cats more than any other creatures have the ability to stare down the human gaze.” – W.C.
The all-knowing Pig , 2015
Drypoint & Chine Colle
45 x 43. 7 cm
Edition of 20
R 7 360 incl. VAT
The Hybrid Piglet, 2015
Bronze
Height 105 cm
Edition of 12
POR
Wilma Cruise was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1945, three years before the Nationalist Apartheid government was elected to power. For the following forty-five years she lived under a regime that was predicated on the public identity of people. Hence, it is not surprising that the question of identity beyond the publicly conferred image should be of concern to her. Her art functions in the psychic space between inner and outer worlds. She uses the body, the site
of experience, as the vehicle for the exploration
of meaning.
