Current Review(s)
Lingua Franca
Richard Hart at KZNSARichard Hart just wanted to design record covers. And draw.
Fine art not being an option, he decided the best way to keep doodling after school was to study graphic design, where he graduated from Natal Technikon (now Durban University of Technology) in 1989. For the past 21 years, Hart has worked as a graphic designer, the bulk of that time at Disturbance Design, the agency he started in 1997 with his sister, Susie Hart. In 2009, growing frustrated with fulfilling an increasingly managerial role at Disturbance, Hart started painting in the evenings. These paintings culminated in his first solo exhibition: ‘Kind Pockets’ at Whatiftheworld in Cape Town in 2009.
Whereas ‘Kind Pockets’ was a distinct shift from Hart’s world of graphic design, ‘Lingua Franca’ sees him exploring the intersection of his skills as a graphic designer and what he describes as his ‘unexpected love affair’ with contemporary art. Hart’s fascination with words, language and letterforms underpins this collection of sculptures, assemblages, drawings, paintings, photos and installation. He made a conscious decision to restrict the terrain covered by this exhibition to the relationship between words and images, and words as images, as for Hart, ‘each is less without the other’.
What results is a collection of typographic moments, pushing the boundaries of contemporary graphic design into the realm of visual art. The exhibition demonstrates the artist’s keen sense of play with communicating ideas through the combination of images and words, and the show holds an intricate experience of moments as one moves through the gallery.
17 August 2010 - 05 September 2010
Listings(s)
'Lingua Franca'
Richard Hart at KZNSARichard Hart's career as a graphic designer has been a twenty-year love affair with letterforms, words, text and language. 'Lingua Franca' takes this relationship into a gallery context and allows Hart to unhitch his craft from the imperatives of graphic design. Freed from the need to communicate to a mass audience, Hart's work engages intimately, using materials and techniques far removed from the traditional media associated with graphic design. 'Lingua Franca' uses sculpture, assemblage, drawing, painting, photography and installation to create a world of words that is by turns emotive, poignant, funny, provocative, clever, silly and absurd.
17 August 2010 - 05 September 2010
'Lingua Nero'
Richard Hart at Whatiftheworld / GalleryRichard Hart's new solo show 'Lingua Nero' is a continuation of Hart’s investigation into the complex relationship of semiotics, signs, symbols and language. Hart engages in a three-dimensional wordplay that affects and expands meaning in a playfully critical dialogue. Using a combination of sculpture, collage, assemblage and installation, familiar objects are recontextualised and married with words or phrases that suggest but don’t prescribe meaning. Through his transformation of the quotidian, Hart’s sculptural and visually seductive text pieces challenge the literal and invite the viewer to engage in multiple interpretations.
21 February 2011 - 12 March 2011
