David Krut Publishing,
Africa’s No 1 Arts Bookstore and Publisher

David Krut Projects, New York opened 2007 with the arrival of Laura Gencarella, a MICA print-making graduate whose previous professional experience includes Art on Paper magazine and Brooklyn’s Third Ward project. Laura and Kate opened the year with Cannonball Press’ Treasure of the Black & White Brigand. A Centuries Old Tale of Lost Loot Told in Woodcut, where Martin Mazorra and Mike Houston transformed the project space into a black and white pirate’s lair with a cornucopia of printed treasures swelling out of the wall and up to the ceiling, backed up by a giant 20 foot woodcut on canvas titled Marketplace.

Colbert Mashile’s first solo show in the USA followed with a selection of new acrylic on canvas paintings showing a happier Colbert contemplating relationships and women with a Gustonesque character to the drawing apparent in the works. The works were well received by American painters, in particular one suite of drawings, topically called Amerigo’s Legacy, completed by the artist during a residency in the US in 2006.

David was in NYC for March with Jillian Ross, our printmaker visiting from Johannesburg to work with Wilma Cruise and Sheila Pepe at New York’s Lower East Side printworkshop. Jill hosted a party in the space to open a small exhibit of Kentridge’s new prints including the Inesorabile Avanzata suite and the suite of six Doves that she proofed at the DKArts shop. The evening was also a celebration of Kentridge’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute opera hosted at Brooklyn Academy of Music to a great New York reception.

We opened an ambitious installation show by the celebrated American painter, Suzanne McClelland in May, “STrAY” – an installation constructed in paper based on 11 poems about the American civil war dealing with universal ideas of schism and tearing apart, immediately relevant to current day Iraq. Suzanne’s show was reviewed in November’s Art in America magazine and brought us good attendance figures.

Lucy Rayner, our Johannesburg gallery manager, also visited New York in June to observe American curator and dealer, Renée Riccardo’s summer show at David Krut Projects, Homegrown – a bright, ambitious group show exhibiting nearly 20 artists from in and around New York City. Crowd control at the opening was impossible, and the exhibit was reviewed two months running in The Village Voice newspaper.

Cy Amundson’s solo painting and sculpture show based on a flippant idea of portraiture opened the Fall programme, followed by a change in tone to Painting Then for Now. Fragments of Tiepolo at the Ca’ Dolfin, by Svetlana Alpers, James Hyde and Barney Kulok. It has been a privilege to work with Svetlana, one of the world’s most respected art historians, and an opportunity to publish the first substantial US DKP publication – a full colour artists’ book that reproduces all nineteen art works and demonstrates the combined gaze of an art historian, a painter and a photographer on the work of the eighteenth century Venetian master.

2007 has been a hectic year with four new book publications to promote alongside the exhibition programme, plus new print editions by McClelland and Kentridge among others. Not forgetting the New York art book fair and the Editions and Book fair that we were invited to in September and November respectively. 2008 does not promise to be any quieter.Thanks to all for their support.

Keywords: Art Gallery, Arts-and-Culture, News