Taus Makhacheva is the unseen ringleader of her circus in Charivari, an installation that stands as both an effigy to a bygone platform and as scaffolding to a performance of fantasy.
First presented in 2019, the installation has been revised for A Space of Celebration, a retrospective of her work spanning 13 years, running until August 14 at the Jameel Arts Centre.
Charivari is a good example of the mirth and playfulness that runs through most of the Russian-born artist’s works. It also exhibits her propensity to spring toward the uncanny from stories rooted in the North Caucasus and beyond.
The original version of the installation featured 3D models of performers and circus props. The one at Jameel Arts Centre, however, presents a flatter variation.
This “flat-pack version”, as Makhacheva calls it, was designed for practical and logistical reasons, but it also evokes something that the original perhaps does not.
A silver-caped acrobat, bodiless snake charmer, and a shapeshifting horse are among the cast of unruly characters that inhabit Makhacheva’s circus. Along with the mixed-media installation, an audio track plays in the exhibition space, narrating stories of the circus characters in several languages, including English and Arabic.
“There are 10 different stories,” Makhacheva says. “There’s a story of a circus canteen, where everything is made from crude oil. There’s a story of a strong woman accountant, another of a clown, then the director of the circus, the wife of the director of the circus, the daughter of the director of the circus, and the husband of the daughter of the director of the circus.”
The stories, Makhacheva says, hint at the family relationships present in the Caucasus and beyond. “All of them depict, tangle, or untangle something,” she says.
Similar credit panels are installed alongside all of the exhibited works. Makhacheva says it was important to acknowledge the people who took part and informed the work because the
The circle of galleries that make up A Space of Celebration gives the feeling of stepping into a carousel, moving around more than a decade’s worth of research, and leaping towards fantasy.
From the Quantitative Infinity of the Objective, a gallery space transformed into an imperfect gymnastics training area, to the work presented by Makhacheva’s alter-ego Super Taus and the Superhero Sighting Society, A Space of Celebration presents a buoyant methodology that instills mirth while goading viewer participation.
The ultimate aim of the retrospective, Makhacheva says, is to leave viewers with laughter. “And a question: Why are they laughing?”
It is on view at Jameel Arts Centre until August 14. More information is available at jameelartscentre.org
