In May, Life in Print: William Kentridge and Pablo Picasso opened at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan’s Remai Modern Art Museum. Whether you avidly follow the South African multipotentialite—widely considered one of the most influential artists today—are a fan of his world-famous artistic predecessor, or are simply intrigued by what we create through collaboration, take time to see this show.
Sharing the stage: the linocuts of Kentridge and Picasso
Life in Print places the works of “two of the most prolific and innovative artists of the 20th and 21st centuries” side by side. The Remai holds the most extensive collection of Picasso’s linocuts, and Kentridge’s unique and varied printmaking greeted guests exploring another recent Remai exhibition, Live Editions: Jillian Ross Print (which closed on August 11).
The pairing of Kentridge and Picasso is not random. Both have and had a “multi-disciplinary approach to artmaking and personas that precede the work.“ Likewise, the shared exhibit highlights an inevitable and essential component present in most proliferate printmaking practices: collaboration. As Live Editions evidences, the final print of creations such as Kentridge’s The Old Gods Have Retired is a captivating result. But it is only a small part of a story that explores what can be created from the input of many minds collaborating on ink selection, carving techniques, post-print hand-painting, and the slight alterations between each translation.
Picasso’s distinguishing linocut technique
Picasso, too, embraced the collaborative nature of printmaking during his time working with Hidalgo Arnéra in Vallauris, France. Over 17 years, between 1951 and 1968, Picasso produced some 2,400 graphic images. Of these, 150 are linocuts, largely using a reduction method wherein the edition is developed in layers, cutting away a single block bit by bit and printing each new iteration on every print in the edition before continuing on to the next.
While sources disagree about whether Picasso and Arnéra conceived this process themselves or borrowed it, there is no question that this impressive collection of linocuts—part of the body of work that places Picasso in the echelons of great printmakers like Albrecht Dürer and Francisco Goya—would have been impossible without the combined expertise of these two minds.
A Kentridge series three decades in the making
A young William Kentridge printed his first linocuts not long after Picasso, in 1975. Thirty-five years later, he returned to the medium to create the artworks on display in this exhibition: Universal Archive. Kentridge’s series of small ink drawings—featuring cats, coffee pots, and nude figures like much of his work—was transformed into linocuts by a skilled team of printmakers from the David Krut Workshop, with whom Kentridge has collaborated for more than 30 years.
Each of the linocuts was printed on non-archival dictionary papers. As a 2019 podcast feature explains:
“The drawings were made using both old and new paint brushes, which resulted in solid and very fine lines, with an unconstrained virtuosity of mark-making. To make the prints, the ink drawings were photo-transferred onto linoleum plates and then carved by the DKW printmakers and Kentridge’s studio assistants. As a result of the meticulous translation of a gestural mark, the linocuts push the boundaries of the characteristics traditionally achieved by the medium.”
The pieces also tie in Kentridge’s love of animation, with some of the series appearing as frames from a film—a coffee pot whose gradually shifting lines eventually reveal the figure of a woman.
Life in Print: William Kentridge and Pablo Picasso runs until December 29th at Saskatoon’s Remai Modern Art Museum. If you are unable to view this exhibition or the accompanying Live Editions show open into August, experience the standout artistic style of William Kentridge by exploring the four Kentridge prints we are proud to have available for sale in our marketplace.
