Covering painting, sculpture and video, Chilean-Peruvian artist Ivana de Vivanco examines capitalistic development through a feminist viewpoint in her site-specific intervention Two Pennies for Myself and Tea (2021) at London’s SCAN – Spanish Contemporary Art Network, warping male-centred systems of dominance and exploitation.

Despite its misleading resonance of a nursery rhyme, the title extracts a segment of German philosopher Karl Marx’s book Das Kapital (1867), which outlines the shockingly abusive terms agreed by children for their work in the silk manufacturers of Bethnal Green, where the show is located. Once a land of commons that sustained forests and marshlands, the area soon transitioned into a crowded, urban and poor quarter. Spotlighting the disintegration of communal territories, de Vivanco paints the entire floor of the gallery in fluor green. Simulating an open expanse of luscious grass in all its glory, its glowy coating reflects the underlying hue back to those present, like an avalanche of contamination that melts into one’s face: aromas of algae, infection, poison, snot, slime, or vomit – this is a synthetic colour that contains such radiance that it can rip and link the space all at once.

The largest painting in the exhibition, Captain Ann Carter (2021), embodies an archetype against patriarchy. A vibrant enactment of the conflicting protests of English activist Ann Carter, the wife of a middle-class butcher. In the midst of the industrial depression of the 17th century, Carter led riots in Malden in defiance of the escalating price of grain, encountering the inevitable fate of execution for her significant role in the uprising, her presumption of leading men, and her self-entitlement of the male rank “Captain.”

Referring to herself as “a composition freak,” de Vivanco’s work renders a turmoil of intercrossing perspectives epitomised in each gesture and silhouette. Advancing past the open greenery, the picturesque setting is strained by diagonal tensions that expose the intricacies of power-relations. de Vivanco’s figures in flux are amassed in their disposition, yet detached in their gaze, as if caught mid-commute during rush hour. No longer consenting to starvation, a fierce female carries away half a bushel of rye in her apron. Her stuffed physique is painted – almost painfully – red, but she marches heroically at the prospect of feeding her family.

However she is not alone. As sunny as it might seem, a Native female companion wears a woven hat, protecting herself from the cold as she pours rye in a vessel. Her thick, braided hair parallels the interlaced chains depicted on the border, which are torn apart, implying a necessary step in the process of human liberation. Fuelled by the possibility of food, a sketched infant follows, whose sharply delineated hand is clasping the legs of Carter in a subtle indication of not wanting to be left behind. Engaged in the frontline are those often outdistanced from mainstream society: children, women, colonial subjects – the others – or as activist Silvia Federici signals in her book Caliban and the Witch (1998), those who are essential for keeping communities together and for defending noncommercial conceptions of security and wealth.

With a passive facial expression, an anonymous character crosses a fence in a state of complete coordination. His right palm is held upright towards the unlawful receivers in an attempt to stop them immediately from trespassing. Simultaneously amorphous and definite, his enigmatic profile is symbolic of “the establishment,” also referred to as the bosses, the influential politicians, the well- connected upper-class, those undetermined and yet so pronounced. In Headquarter (2021), the artist offers an intimate portrait of this invisible force. Modest in scale but monumental in authority, he devours grains with such intensity that they spill out of the canvas, pilling onto the floor.

Also reaching the bottom surface is a headless giant made of fabric and hair that hangs from the ceiling, whose disproportionate pendulous arms stretch too far away from its body. The fragmented sculpture Capital Distancing (2021) and its performed video evoke with humour the breach between labour and value, questioning philosopher René Descartes’ understanding of bodies as extended, transportation vehicles of our independent minds. Featuring a persona seated at a dinner table, her green-tinted bare head echoes the lost commons and makes an allusion to the witchcraft trials, where the women accused were shaved so men could search for “witchery marks.” Within the bourgeois tableware, the subject, who dresses in the same ridiculously long garment that is suspended in the room, is being fed wheat in an absurd, puppet-like process. The distance is further reinforced by de Vivanco, who states “the hands produce, but are so far from the body of the producer. Labour works, the golden hands take.” In this disembodied transaction, the artist finds common ground by transforming violent histories of controlled bodies into sites of resistance that refuse capture.

SCAN Projects is delighted to present “Two pennies for myself and tea” a site-specific exhibition of new works in painting, video, and sculpture by artist Ivana de Vivanco.

De Vivanco began this project by diving into the histories of the area of East London and Bethnal Green. The title of the exhibition derives from Das Kapital, which Marx wrote in London, in which he lays bare the processes of the exploitation of labour, and in which he writes specifically of Bethnal Green as an example of a ‘notorious district’. Beyond the analysis of Marx, de Vivanco found generations of struggle and spontaneous resistance that often formed around a dynamic lead character, frequently a local woman. Women, responsible for food and for feeding, were protesting and being tried as witches – by no coincidence in the same areas of England where commons were being enclosed (privatised). The worst period of the witch trials was between 1580 and 1630, which coincides with revolutions in food production and changes to the food markets that caused food to become both more scarce and extremely expensive.

Captain Ann Carter was the leading figure in the Maldon Grain Riots (1629) and was finally hanged by the state for her leadership. A century and a half later, women again resisted the widespread hunger and deprivation brought about by privatisations of common lands and organised The Housewives Revolt (1795). The revolt was forcibly ended by a state fearfully aware of the path of the recent French Revolution. The central painting of the installation is Captain Ann Carter using a visual idiom derived from a Latin American realism, popular culture, and Baroque compositions.

Bethnal Green was originally a small common that later developed into a hamlet, and eventually was absorbed into the fabric of London. The name of the area is said to derive from Bathon Hall (Bethnal) – the name and home of a prominent 18th century local family -  combined with Green, a word that recalls the origins of the central open shared space of the area.  A green is an area of common or shared land, physically or metaphorically at the centre of a community.

‍Green is also a metonym, naming work to de-carbonise, clean-up, improve our natural environment, or for general ideas about nature. Metaphorically it may imply a naïve posture,  or the state of being young or new to something, like a green sapling or a ‘green horn’. Green is associated with money (the dollar is colloquially called ‘greenback’), and with the negative face of desire, envy, and is typically invoked by ‘green eyed’ glances. Celebrity guests on stage or television programs are said to wait in a green room, and technicians and talking heads work in front of a green screen. It can also mean ‘go’ and is used to encourage change, for instance we give initiatives a ‘green light’ to begin. Whatever we mean by it, being green isn’t easy (simple to decipher), to paraphrase a famous frog.

De Vivanco’s site-specific installation invites us onto the green, physically as well as visually. We stand on green and green colours the room and our sight. It is as if entering the aesthetic and historic reference of her works, but also like stepping into a ‘green room’ or in front of the ‘green screen’ of video production. Are we waiting for our performance, or already participating in its production? A single large painting (Captain Ann Carter) commands the room, bold and hopeful, and a sculpture/costume with absurdly long sleeves and golden hands evokes with humour the ‘capital distancing’ or the separation of labour and immaterial value. The golden hands produce but are so far from the body of the producer. Labour works, the golden hands also take. A work in video enacts this distant, nearly disembodied transaction. The work is playful, colourful, hopeful, inviting, and yet also mythological, historical, mighty, and wryly names dark forces and repeated moments of crushed resistance.

De Vivanco works in oil on canvas, video, and in sculpture, playfully and provocatively reimaging and undermining images of historical and contemporary colonialism. She invokes rebellious women, reimagining and undermining images of historical and contemporary colonialism and the roles women have played (and still do) fighting on the front line against the destruction of their communities.

She grew up and studied in Chile, in Ecuador and in Peru, and her education, experiences and imagery are informed by the aesthetics of Latin American Baroque, Andean culture, and the colonial histories that continue to form Latin American culture and our world. De Vivanco’s palette is bright, rich, and heightened, but also can feel menacing, riotous, and evoke intense emotional states. Her work is skilful, complex, and decisive with dense historical and theatrical influences and references, and explores topics of sexuality, family, society, history and performance.

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