South African stories told in Boston

Associated media

Marion Arnold visits two exhibitions in Boston

In 1985 life in apartheid South Africa was marked by increasing political repression and bloodshed. The security police killed civilian protesters and ‘black on black’ violence erupted in impoverished townships.  But in the dark days of 1985 Malcolm Christian founded the Caversham Press in rural KwaZulu-Natal. In 2010 Caversham celebrated 25 years of visual creativity, and apartheid was in the trash-can of history.

To celebrate a quarter-century of engagement with artists and writers, Caversham showcased its achievements within and beyond South African borders. In October 2010 ‘People, Prints and Process – Twenty-Five Years at Caversham’ was presented at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg, and from  February to March 2011 two exhibitions were shown in the United States. Boston University hosted ‘South Africa: Artists, Prints, Community, Twenty-Five Years at the Caversham Press’ at the 808 Gallery, and ‘Three Artists from the Caversham Press: Deborah Bell, Robert Hodgins, and William Kentridge’ appeared at Boston University Gallery at the Stone Gallery. The first show – an overview – featured more than 120 works by 70 artists, while the smaller exhibition presented more than 65 works by three artists who have worked on collaborative print portfolios as well as individual prints. Between them the exhibitions told a remarkable story of creative enterprise and dialogue.

The prints encapsulate the complex history of South Africa under an oppressive white minority government, and the sequel of a nation adjusting to hard-won democracy and attempting to heal a deeply damaged society.  Personal and social visions are embodied in the Caversham archive, and the prints displayed in Boston entwine human stories told visually by black and white artists, formally trained or emerging from community empowerment initiatives.

Boston University School of Visual Arts published a 100-page catalogue containing essays, interviews, recollections, and 57 colour plates. The catalogue testifies to the spirit of collaboration intrinsic to the process of printmaking and practised at Caversham as its identity evolved and changed in response to South African politics and social needs. Initially a press serving the needs of formally trained artists, predominantly white, Caversham began an outreach programme in the 1990s and ran workshops to introduce printmaking to people from deprived township communities.

In 1994, the year of the first democratic elections in South Africa, which brought the ANC to power and saw Nelson Mandela installed as president, Malcolm Christian conceived a project that engaged directly with the multiple identities in the new South African nation. Believing that storytelling was a human attribute and a creative means of communication, Christian held print workshops where stories – folklore, history, personal narratives – were realized as prints on paper. The portfolio, ‘The Spirit of Our Stories’, exhibited widely in South Africa, was a success and it convinced Christian that the Caversham philosophy of investment in people and art sustained meaningful cross-cultural interaction.

In 2000 Christian established the Caversham Centre for Artists and Writers and began producing artists’ books.  He extended his residency programme and through these activities South Africans worked interactively with international visitors. The Hourglass Project brought Americans from Atlanta and Boston to KwaZulu-Natal, establishing durable links that culminated in the Boston exhibitions in 2011.

For sophisticated Bostonian viewers at home in a digital age and a consumer society, the Caversham prints offered images from and about Africa, the continent stereotyped by its political mistakes and turbulence, and undervalued for its creativity.  Curated by Lynne Allen and Lynne Cooney of Boston University, and Malcolm Christian, the exhibitions offered a microcosm of the rich diversity South African art and the professionalism of Christian, the master printer guiding the production of etching, lithography, screen printing and linocut prints.

The large exhibition featured work from Caversham portfolios. Some prints are by well-known South African artists such as David Koloane, Andrew Verster, Colbert Mashile, Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi, Paul Emsley, Bonnie Ntshalintshali, Gabisile Nkosi, Peter Schütz, and Vuminkosi Zulu. Other images are the responses of people discovering how to use drawing to represent their environment, heritage, and the demands of the present.

The smaller exhibition featured three artists – Deborah Bell, Robert Hodgins and William Kentridge (the latter is now established internationally and well-known in the United States for his animated films, opera designs, and exhibition at MoMA, February–May 2010). The trio collaborated on three portfolios during the early years of the Caversham Press. Hogarth in Johannesburg (1986), Little Morals (1991), and Ubu Tells the Truth (1996) reflect on South African politics, working through the lens of literary sources to comment on morality and social behaviour. They offer insights into the strategies employed by white artists to create art critical of oppression.

Between 1985 and 2011 the electronic revolution created a new information age.  The Caversham exhibitions offered a reminder that the handmade print speaks of something intrinsic to human nature – the power of sight and touch in creative processes.  The prints also offer evidence that people express themselves persuasively and realize their complex narratives economically and simply, by cutting a block, inking it and pressing it onto paper.

Print has diversified in recent decades.  It participates in the digital age but visual expression is timeless and prints are about process, not just product.  The Caversham exhibitions in Boston demonstrated this eloquently. The prints were more than visual language; they were evidence that a rural centre for artists and writers in KwaZulu-Natal, accepting pedagogical and social challenges, unashamedly proclaims the power of art to move the spirit and transform lives.