Walking into Nandipha Mntambo show The Encounter at Michael Stevenson, I was instantly reminded of Avant Car Guard's recent show at Whatiftheworld. Not in terms of content at all, but in the way they both have exhausted a certain formula, are trying new jokes but don't have the courage to allow the new pieces to take over from the old yet. So Avant Car Guard's new paintings seemed half-baked because they were surrounded by old formulaic (still funny sometimes) performa-photos. I was worried about Nandipha's potential to run to the formulaic already two years ago, and was interested to see new work moved beyond the tired cow hide metaphor. But because there was so much of the old work, the new stuff wasn't given any room to breathe.

Having said that, the bullfighter works were good. Its the kind of post-colonial questioning that is fun. Related to hides but not over done. It is essentially, a video portrait of Nandipha in an abandoned bull-fighting ring in Mozambique. She sways her red flag around, moves her feet, but there is no audience, no bull. It's sad. And there is poetry in the emptiness of the performance, performing in Western modes and colonial sports, but the audience who gets it isn't there. It added content and narrative to the original formula, and something totally new and exciting bubbled up. But the work lost out by having Nandipha in the role of the bull-fighter (and for that matter playing roles in all of the new works). What does it add to the work by having the artists body in it? Sometimes, I think, using your own persona to add meaning to a work is an easy option. It is important to develop a meaning for the persona first, then the presence of the body adds something. So far, her body has been notable for it's absence. This aside it was a promising new direction, and beautiful too.

Trends that were unfortunately not carried through in the photograpic and sculptural work which dealt, rather obscurely, with Greek mythology. It seemed that meaning, intent and execution all got into a terrible muddle. The intent, which I assume, is to question the way masculine power is spread through mythology seemed to get all messed up when she puts her own hot body on show, reiterating the masculine gaze. It seems really shaky grounds. And the Photoshop work gave me the shivers.

If you want to tread on these tough paths, where gender and identity mix with history, you need to, as in the bullfighter work, be quite confident in your intent. Or explore it bigger and further, make it a proper show.