David Krut Projects, Johannesburg, Oppikoppi Productions and 5FM are proud to announce the participation of New York-based Cannonball Press in the Ampli5 festival this August. Oppikoppi approached David Krut Projects in Johannesburg to collaborate with the team in introducing a visual arts element to their time-honoured music festival. Martin Mazorra and Mike Houston, the two founding members of Cannonball Press, exhibited at David Krut Projects, New York earlier this year and seemed the perfect choice. These kings of scruffy-pirate black-and-white hillbilly printmaking seem to share a certain underground aesthetic with the Oppikoppi creative team.
About David Krut Projects
David Krut Projects is part of David Krut Arts Resource, a multi-faceted organisation working to promote contemporary South African art through David Krut Publishing and bookstores, David Krut Projects in Johannesburg and New York, David Krut Print Workshop and the Taxi Art Education Programme – an arts education outreach initiative. With its international connection, DKP is able to afford South African artists and musicians exposure to international work and to foster collaborative projects.
About Cannonball Press
Martin Mazorra and Mike Houston started their woodblock collaborative, Cannonball Press, seven years ago. Publishing high quality, limited edition, black-and-white relief cuts and screen prints from their Brooklyn studio, Mazorra and Houston have embarked on a mission to redefine printmaking through their own brand of ‘woodcutology’. By producing massive collaborative woodcuts and large-scale sculptures pasted with woodcuts, they are blurring the boundaries between printmaking and sculptural installation. Cannonball further supports emerging artists, who might not ordinarily have access to the medium, allowing them to make affordable high-quality prints.
Cannonball at Oppikopppi
The artists have created a massive Oppikoppi banner on canvas featuring typical Cannonball imagery such as a demolition derby, pirates and the marketplace. At the festival a canvas snake, measuring 20 metres in length, will be paraded on poles through the crowd like a Chinese dragon. The snake’s scales are printed from woodblocks using unusual images of South African wildlife. For those not travelling to Northam, an as yet unrevealed structure covered with woodcuts of all descriptions will be on view at the Johannesburg Coca Cola Dome.
Cannonball Press at David Krut Projects
After the Oppikoppi festival has wound down, Cannonball Press will be exhibiting at David Krut Projects in Johannesburg. The opening will take place on 16 August and feature a site-specific installation in the gallery accompanied by a range of affordable Cannonball Press classics. During their stay Mazorra and Houston will be conducting workshops open to the public, collaborating with the Taxi Art Education Programme and working closely with Waddy Jones from Max NormalTV.
Keywords: Art Gallery, Artists, Arts-and-Culture, Artworks, Martin-Mazorra, Max-NormalTV, Mike-Houston, News, Oppikoppi, Performance Media
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August 3rd, 2007 at 2:28 pm
The woodblock workshop with Cannonball starts tomorrow (Sat 4th Aug). So if anyone would like to pop in to have a look please feel free: 142 Jan Smuts Ave Parkwood
You can also get a sneak preview of Cannonball’s work!
August 5th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
David Krut Projects is very much a workshop at the moment with Cannonball Press assembling the 3 dimensional sculpture covered in woodcut prints on paper, and Waddy Jones and Yolandi making their fabric dassies. All this in anticipation of Oppikoppi this coming weekend, and also their Ampli5 event which will be travelling to the Coca Cola Dome in Johannesburg for Friday.