Gregory Hari

but there is no telling what may happen to a man all alone as I am
April 09 – 29, 2022

In January 2022, The Lighthouse visited Gregory Hari (1993) in Cape Town, at the end of his residency there, and now welcomes him to present his third solo exhibition, in Zurich. He studied at the F+F School of Art and Design (2012-15) and completed his Master of Arts in Fine Arts at FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Münchenstein, Basel (2016-20). He then went on to teach and mentor at the F+F School of Art and Design. He’s contributed to several group exhibitions, while also forming the music duo HARI & LUTZ, and attended many residencies spanning three continents.

But there is no telling what may happen to a man all alone as I am includes several different mediums, from drawing, painting, sculpture, and performance. All are interwoven with an overarching narrative, stitched together through a collection of the artists discoveries that inspired detailed research. The ideas and creations use myth, stigmatization, metaphor, and symbols that explore narratives across the centuries.

Within the exhibition, figures of desperation hang, resulting in a feeling that lacks hope, telling the stories of sailors, faced with disease, and condemned to the ocean forever to become ghost ships. A ring hangs in the figures ear, a circular motif that has united outcasts of different types throughout the centuries.

Small house-like structures, maquette’s, are placed as imagined stages for performances, not yet realized in full, but understood for the influence and rituals found within architectural facades. Ghost houses, destinations of offering and sacrifice that also resemble the derelict remains of abandoned ships.

Finally, the artist performs a picture that recollects continuous conversations with his mother and other protagonists about foreign displacement and condemnation of the unfamiliar. Layering the performative experience with subtle references that represent a history of erotic exoticism and sexualization of what an invading power created to be desirably alien.

In time, through exposure to the artist’s work, you become familiar with recurring elements and symbols that trickle and flow, as if to say one work does not reflect a period, and that all stories and works of art are connected by a culture that flourishes and falters. Gregory Hari’s eclectic personality projects on the variety of work and is held together by his strong beliefs, making it necessary to consider the various pieces as one big work, and experience its fullness by interacting with the artist directly.