In a new a show that celebrates the art of printmaking, Goodman Gallery Projects at Arts on Main presents editioned prints by numerous artists in our gallery stable.

Simply entitled Editions, the show is comprised of old, recent and new works that take the form of etchings, lithographs, silkscreens, linocuts and woodcuts. Each print reveals how South African artists of varying generations have continually reimagined this traditional medium. Editions embraces the current zeitgeist, with major international shows such as Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now – which recently opened at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York – focusing entirely on printmaking. “Print is a potentially boundless medium,” states Sean O’Toole in his Sunday Times review of the MoMA show, “encompassing everything from linocut to offset lithographs and digital prints. And yet it remains, as [Mark]Atwood notes, a medium with a ‘low barrier to entry’ and ‘democratic spirit’. It is for this reason that print is being celebrated.” In a similar vein, the show at Arts on Main unites a variety work, traversing numerous epochs and conceptual trajectories. Older works include prints by the late masters of the South African expressionist and modern idiom, Robert Hodgins and Cecil Skotnes. Hodgins’ lithographs reveal his idiosyncratic satirisation of South African politics. Works from Skotnes’s Baudelaire’s Voyage series reveal how, as his
daughter Pippa Skotnes asserts, “it was in colour woodcut that he produced groundbreaking portfolios of image and text around the themes of neglected South African histories”. The show also includes older iconic works by contemporary artists such as Kendell Geers’ Gun (1990) and Sam Nhlengethwa’s series Glimpses from the ’50s and ’60s (2003).

Recent works integrated into the show include linocuts by Kudzanai Chiurai, Brett Murray and William Kentridge (the multidisciplinary artist returning to one of his original media); silkscreens by Kentridge and Murray and etchings by Willem Boshoff, Marco Cianfanelli, David Koloane, Clive Van Den Berg and Diane Victor. Gerhard Marx and Stefanus Rademeyer will be producing new work specifically for the show.