Simen Johan has returned to Yossi Milo Gallery with an update of his ongoing series Until the Kingdom Comes. The new pictures are just as disquieting as those in the 2006 exhibition – if not more so – and they demonstrate a clear refinement of both technique and concept.
Johan has earned his name as a master of Photoshop technique by placing images of children, animals (both living and stuffed) and detritus into landscapes that are themselves hybrid images. The effect is never obvious, but the eye remains uneasy, subconsciously aware that the light coming out of the mist is a bit too vivid, that the mountain’s shadow is too thin. His work always features a startling, sometimes macabre, central image, but it is the slight unreality of place that truly unsettles.
In the current work, he seems to have embraced the mystical and religious weight that his title implies. Imagery that was only vaguely iconic in the first installation has now become explicit. We have the Lamb of God, the Tree of Knowledge, a roiling bush of serpents. From Johan these receive a welcome touch of depth and wit: the lamb cocks its head with a wry, slight grin, having been sacrificed a thousand times before; the tree is enshrouded almost totally in a low-lying cloud, its interior dark, dank, and probably fruitless. It is a pleasure to see such measured thought and technique take the place of plastic Jesus irony.
What may be the most popular piece in the show features a nest of pythons that intertwine to form a sort of reptilian arch. The arch is completed by two particular snakes that pass a moribund dove between their mouths. The scene is set at the bottom of a particularly vibrant (and unreal) quarry, wherein the snakes relish a seemingly endless feast of rats, doves and flamingos that descend from the world above. Interpret it as you will – the picture is happily too strange for any easy closure.
The show is wonderful, not only for the visceral pleasure of the pictures, but also for its air of seriousness. These are dark, moody images that call to mind large-scale painting rather than photographs. Like Caravaggio or Bellini, he uses a calculated distortion of light and physics to stir in the viewer an uncanny sense of disorientation, as if they were entering a new world that is unintelligible by accustomed means. If the magic works, the viewer becomes meek, childlike. Traditionally this is to induce humility before the glory of God. But Johan seems to think such a state – to be giddy with a child’s fears and genius – a gift in itself. He provides it generously.
