Description
This limited offer consists of Willem Boshoff’s Political Candyfloss (left and right) and Dan Halter’s On Exactitude in Science. Both Willem Boshoff and Dan Halter are recognised for their shrewd use of wordplay and laborious processes, something the two prints in this bundle exemplify.
A staunch logophile, Willem Boshoff has compiled a number of dictionaries during the course of his career of puzzling and/or obscure words that he has encountered. Rather than publish these dictionaries, Boshoff incorporates the entries into his text pieces in elaborate ways. ‘Political Candyfloss (left and right)’ derives from a small dictionary of political terms that the artist wrote in 2001, including words such as ‘chirocracy’ (government by military force) and ‘argentocracy’ (the rule of money). In contrast to many of Boshoff’s other text pieces, the handwriting in ‘Political Candyfloss’ is erratic and strewn, an evocative consequence of having to write in reverse on the etching plates.
Dan Halter’s ‘On Exactitude in Science’ demonstrates the signature process that the artist has developed with his studio assistant Bienco Ikete for weaving paper artworks containing extended text pieces. Halter has utilised this process to create works as complex as a large-scale piece containing the entire Zimbabwean constitution and extended texts by Sol Plaatje and Joseph Conrad. The correlation between weaving and cartographic grids draws a connection between the aesthetics of Halter’s print and the complete short story by Jorge Luis Borges that it contains.
Willem Boshoff, Political Candyfloss (left and right)
Drypoint etching on Hahnemühle Natural White 300gsm
Image: 76 x 50 cm, Paper: 106 x 78 cm (each)
Edition of 60
Willem Boshoff (b. 1951) is based in Johannesburg. His father, Martiens, was a trained carpenter and the artist grew up with a love for wood and respect for technical expertise. Boshoff trained as a teacher at the Johannesburg College of Art before pursuing a diploma in Fine Art in 1980. He received a Masters from Technikon Witwatersrand in 1984, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Johannesburg in 2008.
Boshoff is known primarily for his conceptual installations. He is one of South Africa’s foremost contemporary artists, and regularly exhibits nationally and internationally. His characteristic passion for words and knowledge structures is elegantly displayed in this remarkable etching. The diptych is titled Political Candy Floss (left and right) and is sold as a single unit.
Printed by Tim Foulds at the Artist Proof Studio.
Dan Halter, On Exactitude in Science
Woven archival prints on Ivory Enigma paper
Paper: 28 x 19 cm
Edition of 60
(text by Jorge Luis Borges)
Dan Halter (b. 1977) is based in Cape Town, South Africa.
From ArtThrob’s Art Bio by Sue Williamson, July 2007:
‘I don’t have a particular moral stance, or any over-riding beliefs. I am interested in people, in humanity as a whole. I am not religious. I am an observer of the world and the things I make offer a social commentary in a somewhat ambiguous way. Coming from Zimbabwe, I am no stranger to the corrupting effects of power and the irony that so few people or just one person can have a hold over or affect so many.
‘I also like to play with methods of production, preferring to appropriate styles and play down my “artist’s hand” in the creative process. I have taken typically Zimbabwean modes of art production, which in the case of Zimbabwe often tends towards the curio. I play with local sayings and expressions and also with meanings. Hopefully, the end products are potent combinations that are often open for interpretation’.
– Dan Halter
