SUSAN GREENSPAN &
H E N T I E VA N D E R M E R W E
This is the first time that long-time friends and fellow artists Susan Greenspan and Hentie van der Merwe are exhibiting together. Their decision to make a joint exhibition springs from their longstanding shared interest in photography and the conceptual use thereof in their respective artmaking practices.
SUSAN GREENSPAN received a BA from Smith College, and an MFA from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work has been exhibited widely in the United States and abroad, including South Africa, as part of the touring exhibition, “Think of Number 6.� She has been a visiting artist at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, Scotland, and an artist in residence at Joule City in Cape Town, SA. She has taught Digital Imaging at Smith College and The Cleveland Institute of Art. She currently lives in New York City where she is part-time faculty at Parsons School of Design. HENTIE VAN DER MERWE lives and works in Darling. He divides his time between his studio and Darling Sweet. Van der Merwe was born in Windhoek, Namibia and studied Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand where he obtained both his BA and MA degrees. Between 2000 and 2002 he attended the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK) in Antwerp and in 2001 the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, USA. He has held many solo exhibitions both in South Africa and in Europe as well as taking part in numerous group exhibitions both in South Africa and internationally, some of which were curated by acclaimed international curators such as Jan Hoet (My Private Heroes, MARTa Herford, Germany, 2005) and Okwui Enwezor (Snap Judgements: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography, International Center of Photography, New York, 2006). He won the prize for best visual artist at the BIG Torino 2002 International Biennale of Young Art in Italy, curated by Michelangelo Pistoletto and, in 2008, the Sasol Wax Art Award for professional South African artists.
Susan Greenspan Susan Greenspan’s archival inkjet prints are the latest in her series of photographs and sculptures titled Photographic Graphic. In 2010, Greenspan began creating work based on marks made while digitally retouching her family’s damaged photographs. She discovered that she could isolate, and then manipulate, the retouching marks by eliminating the underlying scanned image. These marks are always present, but hidden, in the making of “realistic” or documentary images, but without their original referents, all the removed blemishes, and all the adjustments made behind the scenes came into focus instead. At first, Greenspan was interested in revealing the process of addition and erasure that happens behind practically every photographic image we see today, and she liked the idea that the blemishes and mistakes could be the basis for creating beautiful new abstract images. She also found that the methodical, repetitive process of retouching was like the searching and organizing processes of trying to remember the people and scenes in her family’s old photographs. In a similar way, the initial placement of the retouching marks was determined by the original photograph, but the final image Greenspan created was the result of constant revising and reconsidering. For several years, she experimented with different ways to manipulate the retouching marks, using the computer, or by hand, printing and reprinting.
Then, in 2015, Greenspan created a geometric color orb to stand in for the body of one of her family portraits. Since that time, all the images made for Photographic Graphic have come from this one orb. The orb transforms the retouching marks into elaborate geometrical compositions, which evoke an aura of the people in the original portraits, without revealing any external details. At the same time Greenspan is experimenting with formal concerns of shape, volume, and color relationships. She has made her own generative system using one image of reality to create an unlimited series of alternate realities.
Pinksy 2018 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
Left It There 2018 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
Only One 2018 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
A Quarter To Four 2018 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
Of All Places 2018 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
A Cat, Of All Things 2017 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
Two Watches, Of All Things 2018 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
Went Somewhere 2018 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
A Shirt, Of All Things 2018 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
A Blanket, Of All Things 2018 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
Of All Things 2016 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
Not Alone 2018 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
Some Bracelets, Of All Things 2018 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
Conglomerate 2016 Archival inkjet print 220 x 280 mm Edition: Artist’s Proof 1/1
Hentie van der Merwe This is the first time Hentie van der Merwe is showing new work after taking a five-year break from exhibiting to devote himself to starting, and growing, together with his partner, Frits van Ryneveld, the Darling Sweet brand of toffees and caramels. In the works on display Van der Merwe continues to explore themes and art-making techniques by now firmly entrenched in his art; the landscape as motif combined with autobiographical references, text, layering, stitching and embroidery. In the making of these works Van der Merwe, as is often the case in his work, appropriated an existing collection of found photographs, which he transformed during the act of making so as to imbue these with an entirely new and different set of meanings and resonances. Here he worked with digital wildlife surveillance photographs which he obtained from his brothers, and which were made on the farm in Namibia where he spent his youth. The different texts incorporated into the works are from different sources; most were written by the artist himself while there are instances where he appropriated existing texts, such as in the work “The horse” wherein he re-tells, in his own words, the Nama folktale “The girl who fell in love with a horse”.
She went into the veld almost every day, for she had fallen in love with a horse. She would take food and go into the veld and once there she would start singing. The horse knew her voice and would come running up to her. Some days she would sing and the horse didn’t come immediately, and so she would continue singing until the horse eventually appeared. The horse would run up to her and lay it’s head in her lap, and eat the food she brought and they would lie together for some time and then she would go home again. This happened almost every day, and in secret, for her father was not allowed to find out. Her father started wondering what she was doing in the veld and one day he followed her. He watched her calling the horse with her singing, and their subsequent interaction. He then went home and told her brothers and sisters. He chose a few strong men and they went back into the veld and killed the horse without her knowing. The next day she took food and went into the veld as usual. When she arrived she started to sing, but the horse didn’t come. She sang again, but the horse didn’t come. This she did for a very long time, and then she went home and cried and cried, for she realized that the horse was dead.
The Horse 2019 Found wildlife surveillance photographs inkjet printed on glossy photographic paper, machine stitching using cotton thread, and pencil on tracing paper 640 x 904 mm
At 19h28 the leopard noticed the red light of the camera and knocked it off the pole it was mounted on. The camera lay still for two-and-a-half hours before it was moved once, at 21h52. About one-and-a-half hours later the camera was again moved around in the grass, this time for several minutes. This happened on 21 march 2013, six days after I turned 41. The camera lay undisturbed after that for twenty-two days before it was recovered, on 12 April at 13h04. I am now 46.
The Leopard 2019 Found wildlife surveillance photographs inkjet printed on glossy photographic paper, machine stitching using cotton thread, and pencil on tracing paper 640 x 904 mm
Why are the elephants flying about in the sky?
Because they are happy.
Why are the elephants happy?
Because they have peace.
Why do the elephants have peace?
That, alas, no-one can say.
The Elephants 2019 Found wildlife surveillance photographs inkjet printed on glossy photographic paper, machine stitching using cotton thread, and pencil on tracing paper 640 x 450 mm
The Letter 2019 Found wildlife surveillance photographs inkjet printed on glossy photographic paper, machine stitching using cotton thread, and pencil on tracing paper 660 x 650 mm
22/05/2012 07h03:59 2019 Found wildlife surveillance photograph inkjet printed on archival cotton paper and machine stitching using cotton thread. 450 x 540 mm
11/01/2010 13h19:31 2019 Found wildlife surveillance photograph inkjet printed on archival cotton paper and machine stitching using cotton thread 450 x 540 mm