Andrew Putter

Current Review(s)

Sketch Assembly

Andrew Putter at GIPCA UCT Hiddingh Campus

The fly-by-night, two-day exhibition ‘Sketch Assembly’, held in the art gallery at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in late October was the brainchild of Andrew Putter. The project was designed expressly to fulfill an educational function, and teach aspirant artists how to develop a conceptual idea and turn it into a reality. Putter was merely the facilitator, and mock-ups of the original poster in which he solicited collaborators indicate how he recruited his team of thirty young students from art, design and fashion schools. His background as a much loved, award-winning art teacher equipped him perfectly for this task, and although always on hand with guidance and advice, he took a back seat as far as the actual art-making was concerned. ‘Sketch Assembly’  thus became a model of the collaborative ideal, producing aesthetic results that do credit to both Putter’s teaching, and his choice of gifted participants, for the show challenges our constructs of the masterpiece, genius and originality with far greater cogency than Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and other Parisian virtuosos of impenetrably opaque prose.

Masterpieces tend to conceal their origins. In the art gallery they materialize ex nihilo. Piero della Francesca’s Baptism of Christ, Turner’s Dido Building Carthage and Ingres’ Madame Moitessier at London’s National Gallery are presented so as to obliterate their history, and occlude the endless sketches, drafts, revisions and changes of heart involved in their making. The viewer is persuaded that the canvas before him corresponds to some blinding flash of inspiration, or that it is the result of an inexorable logical process which, like a Euclidean theorem, advanced, step by step towards one sole possible conclusion.

20 October 2010 - 21 October 2010

Sketch Assembly

Andrew Putter at GIPCA UCT Hiddingh Campus

The fly-by-night, two-day exhibition ‘Sketch Assembly’, held in the art gallery at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in late October was the brainchild of Andrew Putter. The project was designed expressly to fulfill an educational function, and teach aspirant artists how to develop a conceptual idea and turn it into a reality. Putter was merely the facilitator, and mock-ups of the original poster in which he solicited collaborators indicate how he recruited his team of thirty young students from art, design and fashion schools. His background as a much loved, award-winning art teacher equipped him perfectly for this task, and although always on hand with guidance and advice, he took a back seat as far as the actual art-making was concerned. ‘Sketch Assembly’  thus became a model of the collaborative ideal, producing aesthetic results that do credit to both Putter’s teaching, and his choice of gifted participants, for the show challenges our constructs of the masterpiece, genius and originality with far greater cogency than Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and other Parisian virtuosos of impenetrably opaque prose.

Masterpieces tend to conceal their origins. In the art gallery they materialize ex nihilo. Piero della Francesca’s Baptism of Christ, Turner’s Dido Building Carthage and Ingres’ Madame Moitessier at London’s National Gallery are presented so as to obliterate their history, and occlude the endless sketches, drafts, revisions and changes of heart involved in their making. The viewer is persuaded that the canvas before him corresponds to some blinding flash of inspiration, or that it is the result of an inexorable logical process which, like a Euclidean theorem, advanced, step by step towards one sole possible conclusion.

20 October 2010 - 21 October 2010

Listings(s)

'ARS 11'

Mary Sibande, Pieter Hugo, Steven Cohen, Kudzanai Chiurai, Nandipha Mntambo and Andrew Putter at Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma

'ARS 11' is a major international art event filling Helsinki's Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art with artworks, performances, screenings, discussions and workshops, and extending to eight cities in Finland as well as to Stockholm, Sweden. Investigating Africa in contemporary art, the exhibition includes not only artists living in Africa, but also those who live outside the continent; artists of African descent as well as Western artists who address African issues in their work. The exhibition features some 300 works by a total of 30 artists, including Mary Sibande, Kudzanai Chiurai, Nandipha Mntambo, Andrew Putter, Steven Cohen and Pieter Hugo.

15 April 2011 - 27 November 2011

Venice Biennale

Mary Sibande, David Goldblatt, Andrew Putter, Siemon Allen, Kendell Geers and Nicholas Hlobo at Various venues around Venice

The South African contingent is strong at this year's Venice Biennale, not only in the much-discussed South African Pavilion, but also in the main curated show and several collateral exhibitions:

David Goldblatt and Nicholas Hlobo in 'ILLUMInations'
Bice Curiger (curator): 'La Biennale is one of the world’s most important forums for the dissemination and "illumination" about the current developments in international art. The title of the 54th Exhibition, "ILLUMInations" literally draws attention to the importance of such developments in a globalised world. I am particularly interested in the eagerness of many contemporary artists to establish an intense dialogue with the viewer, and to challenge the conventions through which contemporary art is viewed'.
Venue: Arsenale and Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Giardini

Mary Sibande, Siemon Allen and Lyndi Sales in 'Desire: Ideal Narratives in Contemporary South African Art' (South African Pavilion)
Curated by Thembinkosi Goniwe, this exhibition features South African artists whose work explores a range of realities, memories and fantasies. The artists produce imaginary truths or rather ideal narratives that reflect on South Africa, a country that is simultaneously adored and detested.
Venue: Torre di Porta Nuova, Arsenale Nuovissimo

Andrew Putter in 'Personal Structures'
The exhibition brings together an extraordinary combination of established artists next to artists whose oeuvre is less known. What they have in common is a dedication to the concepts of Time, Space and Existence.
Venue: Palazzo Bembo (by Rialto Bridge, Grand Canal)

Kendell Geers in 'Glasstress 2011'
This exhibition, devoted entirely to glass, features international artists, designers and architects, and includes indoor and outdoor. Brutality and beauty characterize Kendell Geers' object arrangements and material camouflages. Violence, risk, danger, and perpetration carve themselves into the work through poetic language and the unambiguous shaping of the material. Kendell Geers actively pushes the borders and isn't afraid to address banality, kitsch, or sexism. The shift in context and intensification of Geers' work is a result of both the site (Venice) and his focus on working with a specific material.

04 June 2011 - 27 November 2011

'Sketch Assembly'

Andrew Putter and Various Participants at GIPCA UCT Hiddingh Campus

'Sketch Assembly' is a new educational project designed by Andrew Putter which focuses on what artists rarely exhibit: the tests, versions and sketches made on the way towards producing finished products.  In this new project in the 'Hottentots Holland' cycle, Putter and a group of 30 young artists and designers – called the 'Sketch Assembly' - spent four months playfully re-imagining early contacts between ‘Hottentot’ and Dutch youth at the Cape in the 1600s.  No final products were made: only increasingly ambitious sketches, often in the form of elaborately staged photographs.  The 'Sketch Assembly’s' work is carefully based on Dutch merry company prints and paintings from the 1600s, and on the few, rare drawings of the Cape Khoikhoin (‘Hottentots’) that still exist today.  The exhibition shows the many sketches and exploratory processes made by the group, including photographs, drawings, diagrams, costumes, and props.

Artists and designers included: Paul Ward, Swain Hoogervorst, Penny Youngleson, Angela Nemov, Katryn Beaurain, Jen Bam, Leigh Bishop, Anine Kirsten, Jeanne Fourie, Claudio Massenz, Christiaan Conradie, Warren Papier, Karin Williams, Noël Platts, Claire Watling, Pieter Janse van Rensburg, Alessandro Betti, Morne Visagie, Mbongeni Dlamini, Andrew McNally, Leah Hawker, Inge Jansen, Jody Paulsen, Mikkie-dene Le Roux, Melissa Haiden, Joshua McLean,  Dylanne Powell, Chad Petersen, and Seemaa Allie.

Open only Wednesday 20 and Thursday 21 October at the Michaelis Gallery

20 October 2010 - 21 October 2010