What others say about WE

Warren Editions creates a ‘democratic’ art market

In South African Art Times. March 2008

By Steve Kretzmann

Within each city are any number of iconic spaces which get reinvented over time. In Cape Town, one of these spaces is the top floor of a vertical four-floor building on the corner of Bree and Dorp Streets, known to many as the Loft. With its open plan warehouse-design and screed cement floor juxtaposed by a sloping loft-style ceiling, it was a trip-hop rave home-away-from home for hundreds of Capetonians who partied away the mid-‘90s. Fast forward and the Loft shifts through a muso’s gig space, offbeat advertising studio ‘Daddy Buy me a Pony’ office studio and acclaimed Afro Magazine HQ, to its latest exciting incarnation: the headquarters of brand new print publishing company Warren Editions, established by Zhané Warren in October last year. And as the Loft was indicative of the zeitgeist of the ‘90s, Warren seems to embody what is becoming more common in the mid ‘naughties – young entrepreneurs doing what they love and making it work for them. In Warren’s case, what she loves is printmaking and with a certitude belying her 31 years, she has set herself up as one of only a handful of print publishers in the country. At the top of the long narrow stairwell Warren, petite as she is, seems dwarfed by the ample space and light that floods into her studio and one half expects to find a squadron of workers beavering away in the nooks and crannies. But it seems Warren has all the space to herself and whichever artist she happens to collaborate with. And although she is yet to publish her first edition of prints by Hentie van der Merwe, she already has six top young artists lined up to work with her.

As Warren talks of her background, printmaking knowledge and how she wants to “democratise” the art market, the answer to the question: why would an artist want to come work with her, becomes clear. “There is a market for prints,” she says, “it is strong and stable and is growing steadily.”

Publishing an edition of prints is attractive to many artists, “especially if they are working in a slow medium like large wood sculptures, for instance, which takes ages to create one piece” and the value of which would be out of reach for the average person. “With prints, more people have access to your work, it’s an edition. It’s more democratic. It provides for the middle market. It’s beneficial to all.” She says editions of between 20 and 30 prints, each of which is sold for under R5 000, is best, allowing middle-income earners who realise the value of investing in original art produced by up-and-coming artists, to enter the market. But publishing a set of print editions is not necessarily ideal for every artist.

“It needs to be an artist whose work can be translated to printmaking, and whose work I find exciting and respond to.” For the artist, experience in printmaking is not essential. “It’s quite exciting when they don’t have any experience,” she says, as she enjoys the process of discovery the artist encounters. This may be because Warren seems to thoroughly enjoy leading others through the technical process of intaglio printing, and her speciality, aquatint. Even as a student at Stellenbosch, she says, she used to prepare fellow student’s plates simply because she didn’t mind doing it, asking nothing more than one copy of the print in return. Her mastery of the process led her to being employed as the studio assistant during her undergrad years, cementing her knowledge and earning her some pocket money in the process. Then it was five years spent on a scholarship in one of the world’s printmaking capitals, Antwerp, which led to her expanding her repertoire and mastering intaglio techniques little known in South Africa.

Yet although she obtained her MFA at the University of Johannesburg in 2006, the term ‘master printmaker’ is one she shies away from. “It’s a rather heavy term,” she says, but her ability to take care of the technical processes, and show the artist how best to achieve certain effects, frees the artist to concentrate on the actual markmaking and creation of tone and texture, producing a true collaborative effort. And with Warren Editions taking care of the subsequent ‘business end’ – the consignments, gallery hangings, sales and invoicing – and handing the majority of the profits (60%) back to the artist, it’s likely she’ll soon have a number of artists knocking on the door to her loft. In the meantime, we can look forward to saving for prints by Hentie van der Merwe and the other artists she’s already got lined up in her appointment book, which include Paul Edmunds, Conrad Botes, Claudette Schreuders, Luan Nel and Henk Serfontein, as well as Tom Cullberg, whom she is currently working with.

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Design Beat

Published in morridesign blog on 20 December 2008

By Hannah Morris

My last stop of the day was Warren Editions on Bree Street. Zhané Warren is the master printmaker and owner of WE, working with a full-time assistant (Emma) in producing fine art prints. The studio itself is gorgeous: white walled, low-ceilinged, and long – stretching back into the coolness. I would say it’s a hip, white-walled, artsy version of a hobbit-hole but that sounds a bit, well, Bilbo Baggins. It’s more that this space is comfortable yet elegant; cool and quiet. And lovely art on the walls: Zhané collaborates with artists from all over South Africa (and starting to work with international artists, as well.) They work with her, hand-in-hand, as the artists usually don’t have much print-making experience when they enter the space. Zhané’s role is to guide the process; she suggests techniques that build upon the artist’s way of working or their ‘mark’. And then, of course, she and Emma do the printing work itself, pulling proofs for the artist to consider and then rework the plate, if necessary. I learned more about print-making in a half hour of talking to Zhané than I had learned so far in my (limited) print-making education. I’m eager to do some work with her in the future, as well as promote what she does. As she told me, print-making has a confused reputation: prints befuddle many a curator, let alone the art collector, let alone the artist, let alone the average joe or jane on the street looking to buy some art. Fine art prints are an excellent route into an art-buying scheme; they are usually more affordable than a once-off piece of work (be it a painting or collage or the like) because of the fact that they are editioned. To realize that the original work are the prints themselves (it’s a common misunderstanding that the printing plate is the ‘original’ but it’s not – it’s a vehicle) blew me away. Thinking about the origination of printing, it all made sense: reproducibility, affordability, and ‘art for the masses.’ Ah ha! So please check out her website; and see the kind of work she facilitates. I wish there were 20 extra hours in the day, that’s all I can say. I know how I’d start to fill them.