Lucky Fish is a fountain

This work depicts a finial, the ornamental nozzle from which water emerges in a fountain. While travelling through South Africa's sites of spectacle, from casinos and roadside attractions to shopping malls and churches, I repeatedly encountered fountains. Some were choreographed with coloured lights, others were littered with lucky pennies. Regardless of context, each seemed to promote an atmosphere of abundance and wonder through the perpetual circulation of water. By isolating the fountain's overlooked ornament, the work examines the decorative mechanisms through which fantasy is staged. Here, however, the fish can no longer perform its function. Its mouth is plugged with a bass ‘droplet’. There is a blockage to this serial image. The fountain's promise of endless circulation is interrupted. Like many of Láura’s works, the sculpture lingers at the point where imitation begins to fail, allowing the machinery of spectacle world-building to become visible.