Paper Wedge
c. 21st century
Anonymous


The exhibition ‘Touching Moments’ encompasses various socio-political notions of self. Reminiscence is rife in the title of this exhibition, ‘moments’ seems to imply that which is passed and only part of a lost history. We have all been touched at one moment or another, whether it be emotionally or physically. There is a certain uncanniness about the word ‘touching’ especially when related with the twentieth century notion of the ‘inappropriate touch’. The piece entitled Paper Wedge (2008) further taps into the sexual innuendo that echoes throughout the exhibition. The wedge denotes something squeezed underneath something else. This, in terms of the connotations of touch would be regarded as highly inappropriate: the idea that something is slotted into a tight dark space between two opposing materials.

The wedge, which is nothing more than a folded sheet of paper, arouses several questions: Is it blank? Does it have some explanatory inscription about its purpose? Does it hold a tit-bit into someone’s life? Similarly, questions littered with perplexities pertaining to the actual piece of furniture supported, are at the fore of one’s mind. Why is the podium wobbly? Was it born faulty or did its leg deteriorate over time and if so, how?

The paper wedge signifies the closing of a void that otherwise destabilized the object. It speaks of intimacy and friction whilst discussing oppression and suffocation. The weight of that monumental object is rested on the previously flimsy piece of paper. This emotive piece actively engages in the discourse concerning the weight inflicted on an individual by the pressures of modern life.

Lerato Bereng