• Hand-pulled silkscreen print on 100% archival, cotton-based paper (Saunders Bockingford, 300gsm).
• Paper size: 1100x1500mm
• Limited edition of 6
• Numbered and signed by the artist
• Hand-printed in South Africa
• Prints are sold unframed – Framing can be arranged upon request: email us for more information

With its massive dimensions of 1.1 x 1.5m, this Special Project by Conrad Botes is four times the size of our standard 50ty/50ty Editions. What’s more, it’s limited to just 6 prints, making it a very special edition indeed.

In describing his practice, Botes explains that he exploits the system of allegory – that his work is not intended to elicit a direct or “correct” interpretation, but rather to encourage the viewer to locate their own position and derive their own meaning. He does, however, make use of recurring symbols that offer what he calls “clues” as to possible meaning, as he explains below:

“I often make use of animals as metaphors in my work as I find it a suitable entry point in the allegories I am working with. … The use of the gorilla as a metaphor in my allegorical work dates back to 2007 … [and] is a signifier for compassion and the potential for empathy.”

In this particular work, another “clue” is found in the screen print’s title, taken from Slavoj Žižek’s essay, The Antinomies of Tolerant Reason. In his text, Žižek argues that in our globalised world, the concept of tolerance is logically impossible and has been corrupted to the point that it acts as a guise for ideological intolerance, resulting in strange parallels between Western liberalism and religious fundamentalism.

Conrad Botes (b. 1969) came to fame (and notoriety) as one half of the brains behind Bitterkomix – a subversive and biting satirical publication started in 1992 with fellow student Anton Kannemeyer. Targeting Afrikaner and South African culture and their sacred issues of race, politics and religion, subjects are portrayed in an irreverent and provocative comic book format. This Pop aesthetic and ideology also inform Botes’ paintings, sculptures and prints: His work is characterised by jarring, bold colour, graphic line work and popular-cultural symbols – repeated, flattened and “packaged” into a visual language that is accessible and consumable. By treating disturbing, traumatic and violent subject matter in a comic, detached manner, Botes masterfully elicits in the viewer a response of simultaneous attraction and repulsion, an experience all too familiar within present-day consumerist culture.

Botes has held solo shows in Sydney, London, New York and Bologna, and participated in numerous international group exhibitions and biennales, notably; at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2011 and in 2001 alongside artist greats Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, William Kentridge, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol at the Galleria of Modern Art in Bergamo, Italy.