Entries (RSS) TRC Cantata Portfolio by Johan Engels
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27th July 2007 | Other items by Lucy Rayner |
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David Krut Projects is proud to announce the publication of “TRC Cantata”, a portfolio of seven original prints by Johan Engels. An illustrious theatre designer, Engels has worked with the Vienna State Ballet, Zurich Opera, Salzburg Festival, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Frankfurt and Opera Zuid. In 2006 he was invited by David Krut to collaborate with printmaker, Jillian Ross in the David Krut Print Workshop where he produced an evocative suite of black and white etchings inspired by a proposed Truth and Reconciliation cantata. This cantata was to be staged as a full production styled around excerpts from testimonies held at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the personal memories of perpetrators, victims and soldiers. Engels was elected to design the sets and costumes and was set to collaborate with legendary director Janice Honeyman. Engels’s poignant series of etchings pays tribute to the daring idea of staging a production out of an important historical event. The TRC was assembled after the first democratic election with the intention of providing a forum in which both victims and perpetrators of apartheid-era violence could come forward and give testimony, or request amnesty from prosecution. The TRC has come to be a crucial component of South Africa’s transition to democracy. Although Engels’s vision of the cantata did not come to fruition, the prints allow one to see Engels’s interpretation of the TRC through these evocative prints. The brown cardboard portfolio box, tied closed with a black ribbon, is stamped ‘Rejected’ in red ink. As one opens it to slowly slide out the seven works the generous scale of each print and the quality of the paper and black line confirm a unique beauty inherent in the materials. In persuasive drypoint line Engels renders certain figures in an atmosphere of anxiety and despair, and others in an emotionally uplifting theatrical experience. In Names figures stand to attention under a spotlight glare, their bodies swathed in text revealing the names of the thousands who participated in the TRC hearings. In Chord two figures play a literal tug of war, one at either end of an inexorable metaphorical struggle. Conversely, in Chorus the figures cover the surface of the paper in song, seemingly rising above the horrors of apartheid in a kind of celebration of the human spirit. Beautifully executed and printed, this portfolio stands alone as a handsome body of work and forms an important part of our shared history. We encourage you to come and experience Engels’s acute draughtmanship and personal vision of the TRC Cantata. TRC Cantata is a suite of seven prints that exists as an edition of 10 |
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September 4th, 2007 at 5:35 am
If this is the Johan Engels, whose sister is Linda, father was Johan and mother was Frances, I’m trying to establish contact with his sister, whom I knew in my youth. Forwarding this to him will be highly appreciated.
Thank you