Recent prints & drawings

7 – 25 March 2009

Henning Wagenbreth, an artist based in Germany and well-known for his graphic novels, book cover and poster designs, has been invited by Conrad Botes and Anton Kannemeyer to exhibit alongside them at GALLERY AOP. According to Kannemeyer, he first met Wagenbreth in 1993, and there was an instantaneous, mutual affinity for each other’s work on both a formal and a content level. Although on face value their work appears to be quite different, each recognized in the other’s work a satirical take on current and historical socio-political issues as articulated by the alternative faction of society.

Wagenbreth is represented on this exhibition by a selection of recent work, introducing his own suite of satirical representations of society, such as the gymnasium at a European clinic, Reha Clinic, or the socio-political view of a corrupt West African country, Cry for help.

Anton Kannemeyer is represented on this exhibition by a selection of sketches from his drawing books, and introduces a series of three new etchings, Pine trees I & II and View from Anna’s bedroom. These works form a group in conjunction with an earlier etching, My D H, referencing

D H Lawrence, in which the following words are inscribed: “I’ve grown a beard, behind which I shall take as much cover henceforth as I can, like a creature under a bush. My dear God, I’ve been miserable this autumn. D H L, 1911”.

Conrad Botes’s contribution to the exhibition centres on a series of 6 new lithographs he has just completed with master printer Mark Atwood of the Artists’ Press in White River, Mpumalanga, South Africa. Botes also shows a recent lithograph, Cain and Abel, incidentally the title of his exhibition in Cape Town earlier this year.

Both Botes and Kannemeyer insert themselves in the visual narrative of their work, which often unfold around/include two themes: the self-portrait, and obscure men. Many of these men, such as David Lynch, Jacob Zuma, and D H Lawrence do not necessarily suffer from obscurity as they do of notoriety and notorious works and deeds.

The exhibition also features a number of art works created jointly by the two artists, redolent of a long standing working process: the upper half of the picture plane usually devoted to Kannemeyer’s iconography, and the lower half, to that of Botes’s. The ‘double image’ has been used successfully for many of the covers of their well-known Bitterkomix series of graphic and narrative art, as well as for the cover of their collected work, The Big Bad Bitterkomix Book, and a comprehensive book, Bitterkomix, recently published by L’Association in French.

About the artistsConrad Botes was born in 1969 in Ladismith. He lives and works as a full-time artist in Cape Town, South Africa.
Anton Kannemeyer was born in 1967 in Cape Town, South Africa, where he lives and works, also a full-time artist for the last two years.
Henning Wagenbreth was born in 1962 and lives and works in Berlin, Germany, where he is Professor in the Department for Visual Communication, University of Berlin.

© GALLERY AOP