Belle Shafir - Cloning
Installation
The notion that identity is not a primordial given (an emplasure), but an ongoing emplacement of the self, comes through strongly in the current exhibition, where Belle has juxtaposed abstract paintings of fossils made from diverse materials like oil, sand and powder with an anaesthetic crucible of test tubes linked to a clutch of slithering intravenous tubes. In ‘From Fossils to Anonymity’ Continuum?’ Belle reflects on the tension between two different constructs of identity, the former as a fixed outcome of natural history and the latter as anonymous, manufactured through genetic intervention. But lest the viewer think that this reflects a universal debate of evolution versus genetic science, Belle shifts our focus to the ground beneath our feet. We stand on an ornamental pattern formed by the repetition of a single word that evades recognition. Belle has deliberately written the word ‘identity’ in Hebrew, to delay the Indian viewer from consuming the work instantly.