Double Sided (and Left to Right like I. Burn)

‘Double Sided (and Left to Right like I. Burn)’ is a suite of four photographs that documents a temporary installation, loosely inspired by American minimalist artist Donald Judd and South African outsider artist Helen Martins. Ferreira’s interest in the work of artists and architects and in the resonances and gaps in cultural histories is present in the four photographs ‘Double Sided (and Left to Right like I. Burn)’.

Realised at two different locations and different times, the first two photographs were created when Ferreira went to the Chinati Foundation in Texas in 1996 (where Donald Judd lived and worked) and recreated the interior of Helen Martin’s house. The remaining two photographs were created at Nieu Bethsheda in South Africa in 1997 (where Martins lived and worked) and where Ferreira created an installation based on Judd’s architectural office.

By revisiting Judd and Martin, Ferreira makes clear how both artists were interested in procuring a sense of the sublime in their respective work. In the ‘Double Sided (and Left to Right like I. Burn)’ this overlap is manifest in the use of light and a sense of materiality, which were concerns central to Judd and Martin’s practices. For Ferreira, however, the formal and aesthetic similarities between Judd and Martin are contrasted against the dissimilar cultural, political and subjective context in which both artists were working and the asymmetrical acknowledgment each artist received during their life.