'printtttt' at the AVA
By Sue Williamson
'Printtttt!' might be the triumphant cry of the artist finally ready to approve the colour/texture/marks of the proof he or she has been working on, and go forward to hand printing the edition. In this case, it is the title of a small show of prints that, says curator Andrew Lamprecht, aimed 'to present prints that utilise unusual, unexpected or innovative techniques and technologies, or are made by artists who are not usually associated with printmaking.' Hung in the mezzanine gallery of the AVA, this small but lively show did indeed present a fresh look at an age-old form of artmaking continually updating itself by ingesting new technological possibilities.
Malcolm Payne, one of whose interests has always resided in the vibration of small elements of brilliant colour, one against another, here shows one of his remarkably sophisticated large scale colour prints, all designed with standard computer software.
At totally the other end of computer skill range, Ed Young digitally spray painted a simple acerbic statement on a sheet of paper: You'd have to be fucking desperate to be on this crap show. And Fritha Langerman subverted the whole idea of technological advancement by hand-etching a PostScript error message onto a cancelled and erased copper plate of the image that the artist was trying unsuccessfully to print on her computer.
Zen Marie showed a little postcard sized image in a gold frame, too small and dark to really see what it was all about, and Ruth Sacks selected two particularly unlikely South African destinations to make glitter script T-shirts for: Benoni and De Aar.
Just as digital cameras are proclaimed to be catching up to film in terms of resolution, so are artists turning to the low tech quality of cellphone camera images to make work. Bridget Baker's contribution was a series of such images taken as part of the artist's project at this year's Oudsthoorn festival - closeups of people kissing a ring the artist had found in Oudsthoorn on a previous occasion, each image sealed with the ring.
Cameron Platter again nods to Namibia's best known artist, John Muafangejo, with this large scale lion woodcut drawn in classic Muafangejo mode. Platter's own additions to the image are a backwards I love Africa statement and a dollar bill.
A full list of participating artists were: Zen Marie, Watkin Tudor Jones, Ruth Sacks, Moshekwa Langa, Matthew Hindley, Malcolm Payne, Linda Stupart, Katherine Bull, Fritha Langerman, Ed Young, Cameron Platter, Bridget Baker and Barend de Wet.
The show demonstrated once again that in spite of the recent Nelson Mandela limited edition print debacle, printmaking as a mode of making good contemporary art, is indeed alive and well.
May 30 - June 18, 2005
AVA
