This process will end in the ultimate exhibition, namely The Boston-Joburg Connection: Collaboration and Exchange at Artist Proof Studio, 1983-2012, which will be hosted at the Tuft University Art Gallery in Boston. This collaborative event will be curated by art historian professor Pamela Allara.
To kick off the fine-art celebration, six international visiting artists will provide their valuable input to three groups of talented South African student artists from the APS, in a sequence of workshops. These workshops will culminate in a series of prints which will not only be chosen and bound into a special book installation, but will also be exhibited at the APS at the end of the ten day period and finally installed at the prestigious Boston exhibition.
APS' history dates back to 1983, when an idea was born in Boston by a young Tufts/Museum School graduate and now renowned South African artist Kim Berman. APS was then established in Johannesburg with fellow artist Nhlanhla Xaba. APS was formed with the intention of training potentially talented, from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, to become professionals. The studio focuses on intaglio and relief printmaking processes, including lithography and silk-screening, plus other mixed media printing techniques, and now trains between 80 and 100 students each year.
For the workshop the visiting artists are Peter Scott, and Rhoda Rosenberg, both from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts' printmaking faculty, graduate student assistants Ella Lundberg and Erin Grimes, also from SMFA, and Birgit Blyth and Judy Quinn, visiting Boston artists of alternative photographic techniques.
In solidarity with the Save the Rhino Campaign, artists from the APS will be showing their dedication to the cause by creating a life-size rhino print. This eclectic artwork will consist of a selected image of a rhino made up of 50 or more small tiled prints by individual participants in the workshop which will then be installed to make up a life-size image. The work of art will be showcased at JAG for the duration of the APS exhibition, after which it will be donated to Save the Rhino campaign for auction.
Finally, on 5 May, as a pre-cursor to the Coming of Age exhibition, there will be a student opening of the Boston-Joburg Connection which will see the third-year students exhibiting their works and will feature the prints chosen at the initial workshop to become star attractions in Boston.
