Triumphs and Laments: Lampedusa

Artist. William Kentridge Title. Lampedusa Date. 2017

Dimensions. 207 x 119 cm Edition. 12

Medium. Relief, printed from 12 woodblockson Somerset Velvet, Soft White, 300 gsm Final work comprised of 28 individual sheets adhered by 47 aluminum pins

William Kentridge Triumphs and Laments Woodcuts: Lampedusa David Krut Workshop (DKW)

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William Kentridge Triumphs and Laments Woodcuts: Lampedusa William Kentridge Triumphs and Laments Woodcuts: Lampedusa | David Krut Workshop (DKW) jill@davidkrut.com

David Krut Workshop (DKW)

The Making of Lampedusa In early 2016 William Kentridge was at work on a monumental frieze to be installed along the banks of Rome’s Tiber River in April of the same year. The 550 meter work would be stenciled onto the wall of the river from Ponte Sisto to Ponte Mazzini. It would be called Triumphs and Laments and would consist of scenes from the cultural and political history of Rome from drawings that Kentridge had been preparing in his studio in Johannesburg for a number of years.

In January 2016 Kentridge also began discussions with a long-time collaborator, Master Printer Jillian Ross of David Krut Workshop (DKW), about using these drawings as the basis for a series of large woodcut prints. Ross and her assistants Sbongiseni Khulu and Chad Cordeiro began extensive tests on a grouping of three figures from the frieze as this would be their first woodcut project with Kentridge. Over the course of the year, the printing team worked on creating and editioning the first two woodcuts in the series, Mantegna and The Flood (see insert).

Work began on the third woodcut in January 2017, titled Lampedusa. The image Kentridge chose as reference for this work was a photograph of a group of Eritrean widows taken during a memorial service held in Levinsky Park, Tel Aviv in 2013. The service was in memory of the victims of a shipwreck off the island of Lampedusa on October 3 of that same year. Lampedusa focuses on one widow with her face hidden.

The finished print is 2.1 x 1.2 m and is printed from 12 woodblocks. It is comprised of 28 sheets adhered by 47 aluminum pins.

Preparatory drawing of the three widows of Lampedusa for the Triumphs and Laments frieze 1

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William Kentridge Triumphs and Laments Woodcuts: Lampedusa | David Krut Workshop (DKW) jill@davidkrut.com

Detail from the Triumphs and Laments frieze installed along the banks of Rome’s Tiber River, April 2016

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William Kentridge Triumphs and Laments Woodcuts: Lampedusa | David Krut Workshop (DKW) jill@davidkrut.com

The drawing of Lampedusa by Kentridge, January 2017

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William Kentridge Triumphs and Laments Woodcuts: Lampedusa | David Krut Workshop (DKW) jill@davidkrut.com

Experiments with Wood

Drawing and Scale

The initial arduous process of recreating the Kentridge drawing in wood presented the printing team at DKW with a unique set of technical challenges in the first print of the series. Ross wanted to experiment with multiple wood types to achieve a variety in woodgrain and printed mark. Before settling on the size of the work, the printers tested a wide range of papers and timbers. Wood expert Alan Epstein assisted them by building woodblocks from multiple timbers, using thick veneers from the middle sections of the tree and reinforcing the blocks to prevent warping.

The scale of the series had been carefully deliberated over in the first woodcut, Mantegna.

Given that the reference images of the frieze along the Tiber River are ten metres high, the DKW team decided to push the boundaries of the woodcut medium and work as large as possible for the entire series. Kentridge thus produced a drawing for Mantegna of two square metres from which the printers would work.

Ross advised her team of carvers to experiment as much as possible with different tools and mark making ‘to allow for potentially strange and surprising results to emerge in order to help fully appreciate the possibilities of the material.’

For Lampedusa Kentridge produced a drawing to scale of one by two metres. Since the initial drawing was too large for the printing press to accommodate the size, it was decided that the entire series of prints would have to be an assemblage of paper sheets that would fit together like a puzzle.

Similar to the second woodcut, The Flood, Kentridge’s drawing of Lampedusa was made on accountant’s ledger paper with fine text as part of the background. The sheets of ledger paper were overlapped and adhered together to form the base of the drawing; Kentridge further drew onto these with India ink and red pencil. Given that this was to be the continuation of a series, it gave Kentridge and the DKW team a chance to explore ways of pushing the medium.

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Woodgrain

Traditionally, woodcuts are printed on thin Japanese paper upon which the grain of the wood can be exposed with relative ease.

Kentridge’s initial drawing of the series was done on Hahnemühle—a thick paper traditionally used to print etchings—that proved too soft and malleable for an assembled print.

Many types of wood were chosen for their grain effects as well as their density. Soft woods produced dark sections in printed form and allowed for easier carving, while more heavilygrained hard woods allowed for expressive gesture in both the carved mark and the printed sections. An integral design element is found in the angles of both the blocks and the paper as well as in the gestural features of the figures.

Working closely with Kentridge, the printers discussed and elaborated multiple printing options. The blocks were created section by section, week by week, to allow for an understanding of the printed result.

Three hundred gram Somerset Velvet, Soft White paper was selected for its rigidity and overlaying possibilities. Decisions of how the paper would overlap, whether the prints would be printed to the edge, and how they would relate to the previous images were all carefully considered in creating this third print of the series. Once this was decided, the question then became how to create the woodblocks to suit each image.

The woods selected for Lampedusa were Panga Panga, Poplar, Maple, and African Walnut.

Panga Panga is a heavily-grained, dense wood whilst Poplar, Maple, and African Walnut are lesser-grained woods. Panga Panga chipped and splintered when it was carved in a direction opposite to that of the grain. Because Maple is a softer timber, it provided for a range of carving possibilities and allowed moments of soft, subtle blacks. The denser-grained woods were chosen to allow for a blacker finish, and each wood was placed in an area to suit the specifics of the image.

Having identified the woods needed to produce the desired effect, woodblocks were made to render the naturally occurring angles found in the image and within the woodblock itself. These angles are found in the face, foot, and elbow of the widow enhancing the idea that the figure is walking away from the viewer.

William Kentridge Triumphs and Laments Woodcuts: Lampedusa | David Krut Workshop (DKW) jill@davidkrut.com

Paper

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William Kentridge Triumphs and Laments Woodcuts: Lampedusa | David Krut Workshop (DKW) jill@davidkrut.com

Carving

Assembly

Using the guidelines that Kentridge provided, the carvers set about recreating the artist’s vision for the woodcut. Carvers were asked to rotate the blocks between them every three minutes when carving to prevent a particular carver’s mark becoming dominant, and they were instructed to follow the angles provided by Kentridge in drawn form or the angles found in the woodblocks themselves.

Pins were used for the final assembly of the work and to ensure that each sheet rests correctly on top of the next. Guidelines were provided on a map made on acetate and in an instruction manual.

Aspects of the painted drawing created for Lampedusa used a similar technique as in an earlier body of Kentridge’s work, The Universal Archive (DKW, 2011–2014). In this series the artist made use of a ‘good’ brush and a ‘bad or worn’ brush and painted with black India ink to render images onto linoleum plates that would then be carved and printed with a great amount of detail. Most notable in Lampedusa are the top and the bottom sections of the image. These intricacies provided the next challenge from Kentridge for the carvers because it required a finer, detailed carving technique.

The final result makes reference to the reverse graffiti technique used in Triumphs and Laments.

In the frieze the erased biological patina from the natural stone wall eventually comes through into the image, and in the print the natural grain of each wood timber is an important part of the work.

Lampedusa was produced over four weeks from 10 January to 7 February 2017. The collaborators were Master Printer Jillian Ross; carvers and printers Sbongiseni Khulu and Chad Cordeiro, with assistance from Pebofatso Mokoena; and wood expert Alan Epstein.

In 2017 Lampedusa will be exhibited at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in New York, David Krut Projects in New York, the Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris, the Goodman Gallery in Cape Town, and the FNB Joburg Art Fair.

There are 28 sheets of paper in the final Lampedusa print. All were printed from four types of wood timbers. The DKW team worked to ensure no technical restrictions existed to limit the artist’s working process as some sheets were cut at sharp angles, others torn. Pieces were also attached to the work by Kentridge in the last stages of production and allowed for overlaps of image and movement. Torn pieces from one of the blocks used in Mantegna were repeated here.

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William Kentridge Triumphs and Laments Woodcuts: Lampedusa | David Krut Workshop (DKW) jill@davidkrut.com

The final print of Lampedusa, February 2017

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William Kentridge Lampedusa, 2017

Medium. Relief, printed from 12 woodblocks on Somerset Velvet, Soft White, 300 gsm Final work comprised of 28 individual sheets adhered by 47 aluminum pins Wood used. Panga Panga, Poplar, Maple, and African Walnut Dimensions. 207 x 119 cm (edges irregular) Edition. 12

Signed bottom right, piece #11 Numbered and chop mark bottom left, piece #1

Published by David Krut Printed at David Krut Workshop (DKW) Printers: Master Printer Jillian Ross, Sbongiseni Khulu, Chad Cordeiro Production Assistants: Pebofatso Mokoena (carving); Mandlenkosi Mavengere, Jana Findlay, and Mia Penn (production); Alan Epstein (carpentry); Roxy Kaczmarek (post-production) For queries contact Jillian Ross jill@davidkrut.com www.davidkrut.com

David Krut Projects New York 526 West 26th Street, #816 Chelsea, New York +1 212 255 3094 info@davidkrut.com – David Krut Projects 142A Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood, Johannesburg +27 (0)11 447 0627 info-jhb@davidkrut.com – David Krut Workshop (DKW) Arts on Main, 264 Fox Street, City and Suburban, Johannesburg +27 (0)11 334 1209 aom@davidkrut.com – David Krut Projects, Cape Town Montebello Design Centre, 31 Newlands Avenue, Cape Town +27 (0)21 685 0676 dkct@davidkrut.com

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DKW

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