Printmaking, pedagogy and the politics of access in South Africa’s living legacy.
The tenth annual Legacy Exhibition turns its attention to an institution whose influence has long exceeded the scale of its workshop. ‘Artist Proof Studio at 35: A Continuing Commitment to Artists, Access and Excellence’ is less a retrospective than a living archive, tracing the trajectories of more than fifty alumni whose practices continue to shape the visual and social landscape of South African art.
Vincent Baloyi. Image courtesy of the Artists Proof Studio.
Founded in 1991 at a moment of profound political transition, Artist Proof Studio emerged as a radical proposition. It positioned printmaking not only as a technical discipline but as a vehicle for access, agency and collective possibility. In a country where formal arts education had been structured by exclusion, APS offered an alternative model grounded in lived experience and shared knowledge. Its ethos, informed by ubuntu, has since nurtured over 400 artists, many of whom have gone on to become leading practitioners, educators, and cultural workers.
The exhibition’s structure mirrors this pedagogical commitment. Each artist is represented through a layered constellation of materials: a biographical profile based on interviews conducted by Maru Attwood, an early print, a recent work and a linocut portrait produced by current students. The result is an intergenerational dialogue that resists linear narratives of progress, instead foregrounding continuity, return and reinvention. That many alumni revisited the studio to produce new prints for the exhibition underscores APS as an enduring site of making and belonging.
Themba Khumalo. Image courtesy of the Artists Proof Studio.
Internationally, APS has earned recognition for its technical rigour and collaborative ethos. Its professional workshop has co-published editions with figures such as William Kentridge, Mary Sibande, Bambo Sibiya and Philemon Hlungwane, positioning the studio within a broader ecology of contemporary practice. Yet its significance lies equally in its resilience. Following the devastating 2003 fire that claimed the life of co-founder Nhlanhla Xaba and destroyed much of the studio, APS rebuilt, relocating to Houghton in 2020 and continuing to expand its reach.
This anniversary marks the beginning of a multi-year programme extending to 2028, including travelling exhibitions across all nine provinces and new publications. Presented in partnership with Strauss and Co, the exhibition also gestures toward the necessity of collaboration in a context of diminishing public arts funding.
Paul Molete and Pontsho Sikhosana. Image courtesy of the Artists Proof Studio.
At 35, APS stands not as a monument but as an active proposition. Its legacy resides in process rather than preservation, in the ongoing negotiation between skill, imagination and access. As Wilhelm van Rensburg suggests, this is a legacy that continues to unfold, shaped by the artists who pass through its doors and the futures they insist on making.
This exhibition is on view at Strauss and Co, Houghton, Johannesburg, until the 17th of April 2026.
