Getting Set for PS1′s “September 11″
John Chamberlain, "King King Minor", 1982 Image: artinfo.com
In two weeks I am taking a group of students to visit the September 11 exhibition at PS1. Most of the high school students in these two classes have some recollection of 9/11 since they were about five or six years old when it occurred and it goes without saying that for some the memory may be much different than others. So for starters, as I prepare to visit a potentially charged exhibit like this one, I want to be thorough on the “front-end’’ of getting ready. Some of my students may have lost friends or even family members in the attacks and I need to talk with them in advance to discuss how comfortable they are about the trip itself.
With 41 artists represented in this show, many of you may already know that a majority of the work was made prior to 9/11. This is also a good time to tell you that one of our biggest reasons for attending the show is not necessarily to continue reflecting on the events of 9/11, but rather to see how a curator worked with this very specific theme in order to select and assemble a body of work. This approach to organizing an exhibit is much different from a single artist working with a theme or historic event and putting together an exhibit. For the curator, working in this case with a very particular moment in history offers an opportunity to process and represent the range of emotion, confusion, anger and even solidarity that resulted from these attacks. The show allows us to see how Peter Eleey has chosen to visually reflect on the events that took place a decade ago and have us think about the lingering effects.
A few days before we attend the exhibit (and after I speak with any students who have any personal experience with 9/11) classes will view selected images from the show and immediately begin thinking about how and why the works may have been chosen. Asking students to make connections and draw conclusions first is just as important as me filling in the gaps and sharing information that may not be apparent, such as how Christo’s proposal from 1964 to wrap two buildings in lower Manhattan may somehow be symbolic of the particular protection or safety we once felt inside our homes and workplaces.
Joy and Revolution: Talking with Adam Weiler of Ambrose, Part 2
Ambrose at work...
This week’s column follows up on last week’s post and features part two of my interview with Adam Weiler of Ambrose, an atypical after school club in Holland, Michigan. If you haven’t already, check them out. You may even want to try the Makers Dozen to go….
Joe Fusaro: So what does a typical afternoon at Ambrose involve? What’s an after school session like for you and the students?
Adam Weiler: Students trickle in after school. We have healthy snacks available for them to munch on and at 3:30 we start community time where students and leaders tell their best and worst parts of the previous week (dubbed “Happies & Crappies”). The first Thursday of the month we’re joined by a guest artist who kicks off a collaborative project based on a process and we like to have them join in on “Happies & Crappies” too. After this we invite the guest artist to share their story, portfolio, and some lessons learned along the way (including the importance of the business side of art). The meat of the workshops are hands on projects focusing on the processes the visiting artist is known for… Brainstorming. Design Thinking. Graphic or Product Design. Paper Cutting. Typography. Drawing. Photography, etc. We try to do a short 1 hour project and exploration to get a taste of a process and then the following weeks we execute a larger group project based on that process around a theme.
Adam Weiler working with young artists at Ambrose.
JF: Do you have a favorite part when it comes to working on this project?
AW: Hands down it’s the relationships. With students – seeing them grow to connect with volunteers, community members and career pathways; and with staff – having a team that sees experiential education and the potential it has to change the world for the better.
JF: And where do you see Ambrose in a few years?
AW: Our goal is to do the best we can with what we’ve got. For now that means continuing the local work of building relationships with community partners, refining the curriculum and honing the business side of the program. We’ve figured out what it takes to make it happen full time for our community so that’s what we’re aiming for. When I dream about the future I think it’d be amazing to see Ambrose pop up elsewhere: groups of artist-educators from New York or Atlanta using the model to support local chapters. Kids all over the place getting pumped about design, problem solving, creativity and entrepreneurship. That’s a long way off…but one can dream.
Joy and Revolution: Talking with Adam Weiler of Ambrose
If you’re not familiar with Ambrose, well…. you should be. A few months ago on a trip to work with teachers at the Holland Area Arts Council in Michigan I was fortunate enough to meet Adam Weiler, the creative director of this atypical after school club, and immediately became interested in the work his high school artists were producing. The website for Ambrose perhaps says it best:
Ambrose is the greatest after school club in the world. Every month we feature a guest artist, develop a new tee, and complete a skill building collaborative project. Our goal is to grow citizens with strong capacities for creative problem solving, design thinking and entrepreneurship.
I became interested in Ambrose not just because they produce really cool t-shirts, but also because of the buzz that surrounded this group from the moment I landed in Grand Rapids. Many people, including teachers taking the weekend workshop with Art21, had nothing but positive things to say about the work Ambrose has done and the effect it has on kids who participate. Below is part one of an interview I conducted with Adam Weiler this summer:
Joe Fusaro: Tell me a little about how Ambrose is different from other “after school clubs” and how do you sustain participation in this kind of thing when so many projects like Ambrose start strong and then fade over time?
Adam Weiler: When we were first starting the program we surveyed both local business owners and creative professionals to see what they were looking for in potential employees. We found both sides wished they had a deeper understanding of the other- businesses wished they were more creative and creatives wished they had a better understanding of business. This focus on the business side of art and the art side of business sets us apart. Since we’re not associated with or funded by a school system we’ve been forced to take our own medicine and find a funding model that works in order to keep the program going. This year we launched a new line of shirts where our visiting artist of the month designs a shirt that we print with students. We’re constantly trying to find new workable ways for students to be involved in all aspects of the project such as planning, production, branding, etc…giving them more ownership and say in the direction of the workshops.
Regarding student participation – in a lot of ways Ambrose is like any other after school program. Every year students graduate and new students enter – group dynamics and energy are variables that constantly change. I think the personal attention of committed volunteers have helped retain students over the last three years. Professional adults in our community have been really excited about giving back in a way that connects with their passions. We have a solid group of weekly volunteers that are talented, genuinely like each other, and care about students’ development. It’s a trifecta, if you will, and I think it creates a culture that students want to be a part of.
JF: So how do you select artists to work with the group?
AW: The guest artists thus far have been friends of our community and friends of friends. It’s pretty grassroots. There are some really well organized creative networks in our region…and generous. When we’ve reached out to individuals they have been more than willing to help out, which is encouraging.
JF: And when you say students “graduate”, do you mean from high school, or is there some kind of graduation from Ambrose? Do students have the option of working with Ambrose after they are out of high school?
AW: Graduate from high school. We’ve noticed a real need for creative community amongst students who have graduated from school but aren’t pursuing college degrees. Up until this year the program hasn’t had any hard boundaries so those students still stop in for the occasional workshop. Occasionally during college breaks we’ll have “alums” come back to share what they’ve been learning, what whey wish they knew, and validate the importance of foundational skills (drawing from life / observational skills). This year we’re doing things a little differently. There will still be an open door to alums coming back but we’re going to have a hard graduation that marks a student’s initiation into the next phase of development.
Ink | Full Circle: Ann Hamilton’s Recent Editions
Ann Hamilton, “ciliary #3,” 2010. Lithograph, fabric, bamboo and hardwood dowel construction. Approx. diameter: 58" (147.3 cm). Variable edition of 19 unique works, published by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles and New York. "ciliary" © 2010 Ann Hamilton and Gemini G.E.L. LLC.
Ann Hamilton’s work is founded on the idea of the line – both in its material form as thread, fiber, and hair; and its conceptual form in written and drawn communication. From this deceptively simple beginning point, she creates subtle and profound worlds and objects that stretch our understanding of contemporary life in a technological age and touch upon the deepest reaches of what it means to be human – in particular, our ability to relate to others, build meaningful relationships, and share ideas through communication. This path of inquiry began over three decades ago from her first love of textiles, then expanded into sophisticated and revelatory installation/performance works, a number of which can be reviewed on the artist’s website. Though she has ventured into increasingly conceptual territory over the years, Hamilton has never lost sight of her beginnings in material culture and the rich presence of the hand-made object. Her work first seduces with its visual and tactile appeal, and then reveals its conceptual underpinnings.
An online interview with Art21 raises the dilemma of ephemerality for Hamilton’s work – the fact that it must be experienced in a particular time and place. This issue is endemic to artists who work in site-specific installation, and it often becomes increasingly problematic as time passes. Though Hamilton has created objects throughout her career, the early examples do not fully stand on their own. Some, such as the body object series of 1984-93, were “performed” and documented with photography (the images were then editioned and published); others are sculptural objects or digital media that played a role in an installation at one time. However, as noted by scholar Joan Simon in her 2008 essay on Hamilton’s editions for Gemini G.E.L., she has recently “turned to different sorts of makings. At one end of the spectrum are … chants and song; at the other reach of the spectrum are the objects that bespeak individually and as ensembles.” (Ann Hamilton at Gemini [exh.cat.], Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, New York, 2008, 15). The human voice has certainly played a greater role in Hamilton’s recent work, but she has also created objects and architectural structures that are self-contained and have a material presence, including a number of prints and variable editions. This new direction in her work partially satisfies, as it has for many artists, an interest in reaching a wider audience and also presents new challenges and avenues of exploration.
Ink | Twombly’s Poetics in Print
Cy Twombly, “Untitled II,” 1967. Etching, open bite, and aquatint. Sheet: 27 1/2 in. x 40 1/2 in. (69.85 cm x 102.87 cm). Publisher and printer: Universal Limited Art Editions, West Islip, New York, edition 23. © The estate of Cy Twombly/ Universal Limited Art Editions, 1974.
Cy Twombly, who died last month at the age of 83, is frequently described as the outlier genius of contemporary art – a member of the post-expressionist triumvirate of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg who followed a unique path that confounded the postwar art world. A painter, sculptor, draughtsman, and sometime printmaker, his work renewed classical themes for our times and explored the expressiveness of line in both written and abstracted form. For several decades, Twombly was understood to be an acquired taste. However, his reception has changed over the past several years and he is now firmly placed within the canon. The trend began with a traveling exhibition organized by The Menil Collection, Houston, in 1989. The same year, the Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired and installed a cycle of ten paintings in a dedicated space in its galleries. In 1994, the Museum of Modern Art organized a major retrospective. The following year, The Menil Collection opened a free-standing gallery dedicated to Twombly’s work. In 2001, he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, and a few years later was listed as one of the ten most expensive living artists. In 2008, the Tate Modern organized a major traveling retrospective of his work. Roberta Smith neatly summarized the high regard in which the artist is now held in her eulogy for Twombly in The New York Times earlier this month.
Though printmaking has been an important means of expression for many artists of his generation, it was a brief endeavor for Twombly. The bulk of his printmaking activity was primarily confined to a single decade of his long career – from the late 1960s to the late 1970s – and his output is modest in comparison with Johns and Rauschenberg, who are each prolific printmakers. In fact, a majority of the editions Twombly produced were a result of his close friendship with the latter. That said, he worked in nearly all traditional printmaking techniques during this period, including line etching, mezzotint, aquatint, lithography, and screenprinting. The prints reflect his general concerns at the time they were created, and edition sizes are generally quite small. Many of them were issued as portfolios, in keeping with his mode of painting and drawing in cycles.
Twombly toyed with printmaking early in his career – a rare impression of his 1952 woodcut The Song of the Border-Guard is in the Tate Collection – but did not work in the medium again until the late 1960s. His first professionally editioned prints were created at Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), West Islip, Long Island, as was the case for a number of artists of his generation. Though Twombly had relocated to Italy in 1957, he continued to spend extended periods working in New York, renting studios downtown on Canal and Bowery. During one such stay in 1967, he accompanied Rauschenberg to ULAE and ended up in the “etching basement,” creating a number of intaglio plates over the following months (see Proof Positive: Forty Years of Contemporary American Printmaking at ULAE, 1957-1997, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1997, 26).
Inside the Artist’s Studio: Siemon Allen
Siemon Allen, "better," detail, 2009. Bank Gallery, Durban, South Africa
Siemon Allen is a South African artist who currently lives and works in the United States. He received his MFA from Natal Technikon (now Durban Institute of Technology) and was a founding member of FLAT gallery, an artist’s initiative in Durban, South Africa. In 2010, he was invited by the gordonschachatcollection as the featured artist at the Johannesburg Art Fair. That same year, he presented Imaging South Africa, a survey of work from the last ten years at the Anderson Gallery in Richmond, Virginia. Allen’s concurrent solo exhibitions took place at The Durban Art Gallery and Bank Gallery in 2009. His work has also been shown at Artists Space, The Whitney Museum, and Momenta in New York City, The Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, The Renaissance Society in Chicago, and the Johannesburg Art Gallery. His work was included in the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town. Allen is a visiting artist and adjunct professor in the Department of Sculpture and Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. His most recent project is an ongoing web-based visual archive of South African audio.
For the past ten years, Siemon Allen has been exploring the image of South Africa through a series of collection projects.
In his own words he tells me:
Ironically, most of my work is the result of my being in the United States, where I find myself looking at the image of South Africa as I might reconstruct it—through historical artifacts (stamps), through current media (newspapers) or through received audio (sampled sound works). To some extent, it speaks to what I feel is a kind of separation from the source, and leads me to consider how much of this work is, at its core, an investigation into notions of branding and identity through displacement.
He is currently showing two works at the South African Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennial.
The most current collection, an archive of South African audio, is made up of over 2500 items, including 650 rare shellac discs. Records is a series of twelve large format prints (78” x 78” x 3”) on Hahnemühle Museum etching paper selected and scanned from the larger audio collection. Allen is presenting five prints from the series for the South African pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale—these include Better, His Master’s Voice, Rave, Tempo, and Zonophone. The scans of the records produce remarkable detail capturing not only the grooves but also the accumulated historic traces of scratches and damage that speak to the memory of the object. It is significant that though these prints are considered by Allen to be part of his audio collection and speak to the primacy of music in South African cultural history, they are silent.
Ink | The Possibilities of Paper Pulp
For this month’s edition of Ink, guest writer Nicole Simpson fills in for regular columnist Sarah Kirk Hanley. — Ed.
Jonathan Seliger, "Triple Scoop: Pistachio, Raspberry, Fudge Brownie," 2004. Pigmented Celluclay (ice cream) on pigmented cast cotton (cone) on cotton base sheet with pigmented abaca/cotton stripes. Printed at Dieu Donné. Courtesy Dieu Donné.
During these hot days of summer, visions of ice cream, sand castles, and swimming pools abound. Triple Scoop: Pistachio, Raspberry, Fudge Brownie (2004) by Jonathan Seliger offers up such a treat in an unexpected material – paper pulp. A medium that is well suited to the season – wet, messy, and playful – paper pulp can be used for more than making paper. Beginning in the 1970s, a wide range of artists, from Abstract Expressionists and Minimalists to Pop artists and Environmental artists, began experimenting with ways to use paper pulp as a medium for artistic expression. They were supported by a number of specialized workshops that opened throughout the United States and their inventive works continue to inspire contemporary artists.
Seliger’s Triple Scoop was made at Dieu Donné, a workshop established in New York City in 1976 by Sue Gosin and Bruce Weinberg. Celebrating its 35th-anniversary this fall, this space and its staff are “dedicated to the creation, promotion, and preservation of new contemporary art utilizing the hand papermaking process.” The workshop has hosted numerous artists, including William Kentridge, who produced a book of watermarks, and Richard Tuttle, who made several sculptural editions from paper pulp.
Tuttle’s most recent work is The Triumph of Night (2009). While the title is a meditation on Petrarch’s 14th-century poems, it displays, like all of Tuttle’s work, the artist’s obvious joy and devotion to the process of art-making. Tuttle formed wet pulp into “sandcastles” and presents these richly-colored and textured objects in a shadowbox, recalling displays of natural specimens. In videos of Tuttle working on earlier projects at Dieu Donné, you can watch his physical engagement with the medium. At one point, he gleefully tosses a “water balloon” (a plastic glove filled with methyl cellulose, a plant-based adhesive) onto a bed of fluffy pulp.
Dieu Donné was one of several workshops that opened in the United States during the 1970s where artists could work with paper pulp. As part of the American printmaking revival that began in the previous decade, a number of trained printers began opening shops throughout the country. Many of these printers fostered a collaborative relationship with artists and they were quick to try new materials and techniques. What began as printers seeking out paper mills to supply specialized paper for artists, turned into a number of printers engaging artists in the process of paper making and, eventually, the material of paper pulp itself.
From left: Richard Klein, Jessica Stockholder, and Gary Lichtenstein at Gary Lichtenstein Editions. Courtesy Gary Lichtenstein Editions.
Following on the April post for this column, which explored recent works in print-based installation, this month’s Ink takes an in-depth look at Art21 artist Jessica Stockholder’s current project for The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Printmaking — specifically screenprinting – plays a unique and significant role in the final work, titled Hollow Places Court in Ash-Tree Wood. To create this installation, Stockholder collaborated with master printer Gary Lichtenstein of Gary Lichtenstein Editions and furniture-maker Clifford Moran to transform rough-hewn planks of ash wood.
In a break from standard nomenclature, Stockholder refers to Hollow Places Court in Ash-Tree Wood as a “situation” – a term she uses to describe a built environment comprised of pre-composed elements that she places in response to the unique features of a specific space. The artist prefers this word to “installation,” which she finds somewhat overused and generic. It is also meant to differentiate between other discrete approaches in her work, namely her site-specific installations, in which she composes diverse found objects and materials on site (also in response to the space at hand) and her studio works, which are self-contained objects.
The seed for this project began in 2009, when the Aldrich was forced to cut a large centenarian ash tree that stood in its sculpture garden due to infestation from the emerald ash borer, an invasive Asian beetle. Thinking that it would receive new life in the hands of a contemporary artist, the museum sent the tree to a mill and stored the planks to cure for future use. In a recent conversation, exhibition curator and Interim Co-Director of the museum Richard Klein related that the idea of offering the planks to Stockholder – who has worked primarily with man-made and mass produced materials in the past – came about when he was speaking with her about doing an installation at the Aldrich. He mentioned the incident with the ash tree to her as an aside and was pleasantly surprised to learn that she had a deep connection with trees and wood due to her experience growing up in the Pacific Northwest Coast. She spoke of the lush rainforest surroundings populated with old-growth trees and her first memories of sculptures: wood-carved totem poles created by the indigenous peoples of the area. Though the staff at the museum had originally thought to give the wood to an artist known for working with the material, Klein realized that it might be more interesting to see what an artist like Stockholder would do with the planks.
Stockholder, who has recently been drawn to opportunities that present unusual and new circumstances which allow her to stretch her artistic practice (see, for example, two recent exhibitions: Flooded Chambers Maid, Madison Square Park; and The Jewel Thief, Tang Museum and Sculpture Garden), was greatly intrigued and quickly provided a proposal to Klein. In Stockholder’s words, the project is a meditation on the nature of “picture-making and seeing.” It incorporates a repeating eye-like motif, which suggests to the process of looking and what Stockholder calls the “frame of the eye,” or the perspective from which we view the world, which is echoed by the windows of the museum gallery that “frame” the sculpture garden, where the tree once stood. The eye concept was also inspired by the prominent use of eyes in the wood carvings of First Nations peoples of the Pacific Northwest. The result is a provocative intersection of Stockholder’s two-dimensional and three-dimensional modes of working, which she characterizes as “creating fiction” and “a response to the mundane, matter-of-fact quality of objects,” respectively.
Under the Influence
Nathan Oliveira, "Standing Man with Hands on Belt", 1960
Now if anyone happened to dial up the title of this post hoping to see me (or anyone, for that matter) reach down deep and start talking about making art and/or teaching after a few martinis, well, I apologize in advance. I’ve had some experience on the art making side and it doesn’t work very well even though we’re all geniuses for the few moments it is happening. As for teaching in that state… um… no. That’s insane.
What I wanted to talk about this week is actually quite simple and I’m sure many of you can relate.
Since 2002, on a spontaneous visit to the Neuberger Museum, I’ve been regularly returning to the work of Nathan Oliveira, particularly his “Standing Man with Hands on Belt” pictured above. I have been blissfully influenced by this surprise steamrolling of a retrospective almost a decade ago that quietly left a thumbprint on my approach to painting and making art. It also left an impression about the value in surprising myself as a teacher and taking the time (aka planning) to see new art in person. Today more than ever, with the immediacy of image searches and online overload, it’s crucial to make real time for seeing art and engaging with it.
Visiting the Neuberger galleries during the Oliveira show, I decided on my 2nd walkthrough that I had to purchase Peter Selz’ sensational catalogue, if only to be able to return to these figures and continue some of the conversations I started. And just as predicted, I’ve been returning to it ever since. That catalogue has made its way from my home to the studio to school many times and has even been on a few vacations. During that time I learned that Oliveira had a brilliant career teaching at Stanford for over 30 years. I continue to find it easy to open the pages and begin sharing how Oliveira’s figures, in some ways, made me see myself differently at a tipping point in my personal and professional career. More than once I have shared Oliveira’s work only to watch a student look into the painting instead of at it. There’s just something about his work, particularly his figurative painting and monotypes about conflict, that makes me look again. And I try to inspire this in my own students: Make work that makes people look again, look closer, and ask questions.
Many of us have been lucky enough to see some great exhibits over the years, whether or not they made their way into our classrooms or studios. I think about shows such as Marlene Dumas at MoCA; Kiki Smith at the Whitney Museum; Mark Bradford at ICA Boston; Yinka Shonibare MBE at Mass MoCA; Spencer Finch at Mass MoCA; and even Francis Bacon at the Met in 2009. But sometimes a spontaneous visit to an exhibit or checking out an artist you’re unfamiliar with can provide a different inspiration. I often think about how close I was to missing the Oliveira show and how easy it would have been to say, “I’ll look him up,” vs. getting off my ass and driving into the splendor of SUNY Purchase.
This spring and summer create some openings. Allow yourself to be surprised. While Nathan Oliveira may have passed away back in November, his work continues to inspire me. His influence is something I continue to cherish.
I think many of you can indeed relate. Feel free to share some of your own surprises that consequently put you under the influence.
Diane Victor (South African, born 1964), “Fading Man I,” 2010. Intaglio. Plate: 20”x16”. Publisher and printer: Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT. Edition 25. Courtesy Center for Contemporary Printmaking. © 2011 Diane Victor.
As interest in William Kentridge’s work has grown over the past decade, so has interest in South African art as a whole. Printmaking is a central component of the cultural landscape in this country and it is an important form of expression for many of its artists. In general, South African printmaking is characterized by political and emotional honesty and a refreshing fidelity to the technical roots of the medium. Kentridge, of course, is a prolific printmaker (see the November 2010 post of this column), as are Conrad Botes, Norman Catherine, Robert Hodgins, Anton Kannemeyer, Cameron Platter, Claudette Schreuders, Diane Victor, and Ernestine White, to name a few. The work of these and other artists, who are well known in their homeland, have begun to garner increased attention in the U.S. recently, appearing in art fairs and featured in solo exhibitions at major galleries and museums.
Several exhibitions this year have introduced a wider American audience to the vital printmaking scene in South Africa. Most visible and comprehensive among these is Impressions from South Africa: 1965 to Now, a group exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art on view through August 14. Earlier this spring, Boston University hosted dual exhibitions in honor of the 25th anniversary of Caversham Press, the first professional printmaking workshop in South Africa. At the same time, the Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, launched the first major solo exhibition of Diane Victor’s work in this country – an auspicious introduction to this important artist who is becoming better known to an international audience. In March and early April, David Krut Projects mounted “Contemporary South African Prints: DKW and I-Jusi,” a retrospective of I-Jusi magazine (an underground art ‘zine dedicated to South African identity and politics, founded in 1994), and David Krut Workshop, a professional printmaking studio established in Johannesburg in 2002. Later this fall, Jack Shainman Gallery will host a solo exhibition of Anton Kannemeyer’s work.
The MoMA exhibition now on view provides “a representative, quality cross-section of contemporary printmaking activities in South Africa over the last five decades,” as described by exhibition curator Judith Hecker, Assistant Curator in the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books in a recent e-mail interview with the author. Drawn from the museum’s collection, the exhibition and accompanying catalogue provide critical insight to role of printmaking in South African culture and politics, presented in terms of the country’s recent massive political changes from an apartheid-ruled state to an evolving democracy. In addition to a scholarly essay by Hecker, the accompanying catalogue provides further information and bibliographic citations on each of the artists, collectives, organizations, and workshops represented. It also includes contextualizing photographs and a timeline of printmaking, cultural, and political events.
The exhibition was inspired by Hecker’s previous work with William Kentridge’s prints (she contributed to the recent traveling exhibition William Kentridge: Five Themes and authored a related publication titled William Kentridge: Trace; Prints from the Museum of Modern Art) and prompted by a curatorial initiative to “expand the museum’s holdings to better represent the breadth of printmaking activities in South Africa” (Hecker in a recent e-mail interview with the author). The first South African artist to enter the print collection was Azaria Mbatha in 1967 but he was the sole representative until the department began to acquire Kentridge’s work in earnest in the 1990s. Impressions from South Africa: 1965 to Now (and the museum’s holdings) were developed over a period of six years; in preparation, Hecker traveled to South Africa for extended periods in 2004 and 2007. As noted in her introduction, this is not the first scholarly examination of the topic (preceded by Printmaking in a Transforming South Africa, 1997, and Rorke’s Drift: Empowering Prints; Twenty Years of Printmaking in South Africa, 2004, both by Philippa Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin). However, it is the first to be made widely available to a U.S. and international audience, by virtue of MoMA’s visitorship and following.
The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue are divided into five categories, four of which are technique-based – the final category, Postapartheid: New Directions, shows the openness and experimentation that characterizes recent print production. Due to the nature of the exhibition, artists are generally represented by only one or a handful of works – therefore, it is best understood as a starting point for exploration. In Hecker’s words, “The show, and our holdings, do not aim to be complete or definitive… it reflects a work in progress; we plan to continue to acquire works by South African artists” (e-mail interview).
The first section focuses on the favored status of linocut amongst South African artists, a tradition that began during apartheid. As discussed by Hecker, its ease of use, affordability, and accessibility made it a natural choice for the community workshops and non-profit art schools that served black artists, who were attracted to its stark graphic power. Early practitioners included Azaria Mbatha, John Muafangejo, Dan Rkogoathe, and Charles Nkosi, many of whom were involved in the Black Consciousness Movement founded by Steve Biko. Their work centered around “themes of ancestry, religion, and liberation” (Hecker, Impressions from South Africa: 1965 to Now [New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2011], 12).
In the early 1990s, the country moved through intense political protest and international political pressure into a peaceable – though contentious – conversion to a democratic nation. Meeting of Two Cultures (1993), a linocut by Sandile Goje, summarizes the spirit of reconciliation that characterized this period. The image shows two biomorphic homes shaking hands: the structure on the left is in the style of the Xhosa people (who were the original inhabitants of the area), at right is a home characteristic of the European ruling class. The linocut section of the exhibition also includes recent prints of stunning technical achievement by William Kentridge, Vuyile C. Voyiya, Cameron Platter, and others. These are less intensely political in their subject matter, though still grounded in the recent history of the nation.
