David Krut Publishing is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of William Kentridge Nose. This book accompanies the launch of a suite of thirty new limited-edition prints by Kentridge called ‘Nose’, the culmination of a four-year collaboration between the artist and David Krut Print Workshop.

In December 2006, Jillian Ross began her collaboration with William Kentridge on a series of prints that was to elaborate on Kentridge’s work on the Shostakovich opera The Nose, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, New York, to premiere in March 2010. Shostakovich’s opera is based on one of the most famous stories in Russian literature, Nikolai Gogol’s The Nose, published in 1837. The story follows the adventures of the pompous government official Kovalyov who wakes up one day to find that his nose has left his face and gone walking around St Petersburg.

In his interpretation of Gogol and Shostakovich, Kentridge has projected the story forward to the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Russian avant-garde, and then into the twentieth century to include allusions to Stalin’s purges of the 1930s. But he has also cast his eye back to consider some of the literary influences on Gogol such as Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy and even Cervantes’s Don Quixote. Drawing on these and other texts, including excerpts from Russian newspapers, clips from Russian films of the twenties and thirties, pages from Russian encyclopaedias, and parts of a transcript of a 1937 meeting of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party in which the theoretician Nikolai Bukharin is being interrogated, Kentridge is creating not only his opera production but several other works.

The prints, now called simply ‘Nose’, were imagined as a journey not only with Kovalyov, but through Russian history. They reflect on music, ballet, the history of Western art (Russian and otherwise) and the various fortunes of the Communist party in its Soviet and South African incarnations.

‘Nose’ is now a suite of thirty prints, each measuring roughly 15 x 20 cm (5 x 8 in). The prints explore a number of techniques but rely primarily on Kentridge’s strong drypoint marks, softened by sugarlift aquatint and punctuated, in several plates, by a strong Constructivist red. Each plate is engraved with a number signalling its place in the series. There are fifty prints in each edition and they have been editioned by Jillian Ross, Niall Bingham and Mlungisi Kongisa.

For additional information, please contact us:

Johannesburg: 140 Jan Smuts Avenue  t: +27 (0)11 334 1209  e:  bronwyn@davidkrut.com

Cape Town: Montebello Design Centre  t: +27 (0)21 685 0676  e: alastair@davidkrut.com

More on William Kentridge

• Nose prints
• William Kentridge at David Krut Print Workshop
• Flute
• William Kentridge Prints
• Thinking Aloud
• Everyone Their Own Projector
• ‘I am not me, the horse is not mine’
• Five Themes
• William Kentridge FIFA 2010 Poster

David Krut Publishing is delighted to announce the publication of this major book on Handspring Puppet Company.

In 2007, Handspring Puppet Company’s War Horse, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo and commissioned by the National Theatre in London, won Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards. The extraordinary success of this production has drawn attention to Handspring’s decades-long experiments and innovations in the art of puppetry and their remarkable contribution to theatre in South Africa.

Handspring Puppet Company was founded by Basil Jones, Adrian Kohler, Jill Joubert and Jon Weinberg in 1981. They have produced eleven plays and two operas, collaborated with many different artists―including Mali’s Sogolon Puppet Troupe and South African artist William Kentridge―and opened in over 200 venues in South Africa and abroad. They have won numerous accolades, including the Olivier Award for War Horse at the National Theatre in London.

Handspring Puppet Company is the first full-length book on Handspring published in South Africa. It explores their work in adult puppet theatre, from Episodes of an Easter Rising (1985) to War Horse, providing insights into their philosophy of puppetry and their technical innovations. It is richly illustrated with images from the Handspring archive and includes essays by theatre practitioners and writers who have collaborated with the company over the years.

Handspring Puppet Company

Edited by Jane Taylor, with essays by Jane Taylor, Adrienne Sichel, Adrian Kohler, William Kentridge, Gerhard Marx, Lesego Rampolokeng and Basil Jones

Book designed by Ellen Papciak-Rose

Project Manager Bronwyn Law-Viljoen

David Krut Publishing

Publishing date: 30 October 2009

In support of this project, William Kentridge has made two limited-edition prints based on his work with Handspring.

Handspring I (Man) Handspring II (Horse)

These are available from David Krut Projects. Contact Bronwyn Law-Viljoen in Johannesburg on +27 (0)11 334 1209, bronwyn@davidkrut.com or Genevieve Lowe in New York on +1 212 255 3094, genevieve@davidkrut.com.

Buy the full set of TAXI Art Books, an important collectible for any library on South African art for R4000.

The first major series of monographs on contemporary South African artists by a South African publisher, the TAXI Art Books have become an invaluable resource to educators and individuals both in South Africa and abroad. As examples of South African art history in the making, the full collection of TAXI Art Books can be valued as a collector’s item. Artists included in the set:  Mmakgabo Sebidi, Diane Victor, Sandile Zulu, Willem Boshoff, Deborah Bell, Kagiso Pat Mautloa, Steven Cohen, Noria Mabasa, David Koloane, Lien Botha, Santu Mofokeng, Jeremy Wafer, Samson Mudzunga and Jo Ractliffe.

Many of the books in the TAXI Art Book series are unfortunately no longer available as singles. These titles are TAXI-001 Jo Ractliffe, TAXI-004 Santu Mofokeng, TAXI-005 Lien Botha, TAXI-007 Noria Mababsa, TAXI-008 Steven Cohen, TAXI-009 Kagiso Pat Mautloa, and TAXI-010 Deborah Bell.

Written by graphic designer Michael MacGarry, and featuring the work of leading design professionals, and targeted at designers, A Primer in South African Graphic Design features design fundamentals and principles; practical advice and guidance; designing for and within the local context; example of work by designers; Q & A with experienced local design professionals; and a glossary of highly-relevant resources and information.

The book provides an intelligent balance of educational material relevant to design students and practical content to help young professionals embark on their careers, whilst providing sufficiently advanced material and content to appeal to mid-level and experienced designers and allied industry practitioners alike.

SKILL SET: Knowledge Resource and Educational Series is a new multi-volume series for specialised design disciplines. Using a practicable, outcomes-based approach, Skill Set will provide instruction in various fields of design, including graphic design, stage design, fashion design and industrial design – serving as a resource for both amateurs and professionals alike. Though neither a textbook nor a design manual, the book will help develop specific skills, intelligent design solutions, and effective project outcomes. It will be a resource on the fundamental principles of graphic design, a source of inspirations and ideas, a business tool for designers, and a much-needed critical showcase of local graphic design.

The Skill Set series will feature content relevant to both a local and international context, as well as commentary and work by leading local design professionals. The series is aimed at a broad audience that includes learners at secondary schools and tertiary institutions, as well as emerging and experienced professionals.

This first title will be officially launched at the Design Indaba 2009.

Author Michael MacGarry is a graphic designer, writer and artist based in Johannesburg. He began his design career in Dublin and London before returning to South Africa to work with The Trinity Session as designer, copywriter, and researcher. He is currently Senior Designer at Fever Identity Design. MacGarry has an MFA from the University of the Witwatersrand, and is also a visual artist who has exhibited locally and internationally. He is owner of www.alltheorynopractice.com and is a founder member of art-collective AVANT CAR GUARD. As a writer, MacGarry has been published in several local magazines, and recently co-published, along with Lloyd Gedye, a limited-edition magazine titled The Pavement Special.

OTHER DESIGN BOOKS AVAILABLE FROM OUR BOOKSTORES

Design Books distributed by David Krut Publishing

Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, New York
Design for the Other 90%
Piranesi as Designer
Design Life Now

TATE Publications, London
Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From Bauhaus to the New World
Pop Art
Julian Opie
Internet Art
The Stage of Drawing

Further Titles available from our Bookstores

10 x SA Fashion Week
An A – Z of Type Designers
Craft Art in South Africa
Design Like You Give a Damn
Design Thinking
Design, Writing, Research
The Designer’s Desktop Manual
Inspiring Designers: A Sourcebook
Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design
Modern Architecture and Design
Notes on Book Design
Ogilvy on Advertising
Points for Departure
Thinking with Type
Understanding Design

Universal Principles of Design
The Visual Dictionary of Fashion Design
Wired: Contemporary Zulu Telephone Wire Basket

REVIEWS OF SKILL SET 1: Graphic Design

Mail and Guardian

Designing Ways Magazine

This magnificent new book, launched in October 2008, celebrates and documents the artworks integrated into and collected for the Constitutional Court of South Africa. The book pays tribute to the extraordinary vision of the architects and judges of the Court who sought to bring together, in the most inspiring, innovative and dignified way possible, art and the workings of justice, and to give a public soul to the new Court building. Working closely with the Constitutional Court Artworks Committee headed by Justices Yvonne Mokgoro and Albie Sachs, David Krut Publishing has prepared the book as a companion volume to Light on a Hill: Building the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Art and Justice: The Art of the Constitutional Court of South Africa is designed by Ellen Papciak-Rose and features photography by Ben Law-Viljoen.

Essential to the original design of the Constitutional Court by the Durban-based omm design workshop and their Johannesburg partner Urban Solutions, was the integration of art and architecture into the most important building of the new South Africa. To realise this aim, the architects sought designs from artists for elements of the building such as lights, security gates and sun screens. The architects also commissioned artists and craft collectives to design and make furnishings for the Court. The result of these important collaborations can be seen in the colour, vibrancy, warmth, and humanity of the building.

The inclusion of artwork in the structural and functional elements of the Court is enhanced by a growing collection of art on view to the public. The Constitutional Court collection started – with very few resources – before the Court moved into its current home and has taken shape around several key works by artists such as Dumile Feni, John Baloyi, William Kentridge, Judith Mason, Gerard Sekoto, Marlene Dumas, and others. The collection is noted for its exploration of figuration in contemporary South African art, a theme that is well adapted to the values that the Court seeks to uphold in its mandate to hear matters relating to human rights and the Constitution.

Art and Justice: The Art of the Constitutional Court of South Africa will serve as a record of the Court’s growing collection of paintings, prints, fibre art and sculptures, but more importantly it will pay tribute to an extraordinary vision: to bring together art and justice in a building that would welcome all citizens of the country.

Constitutional Court Art Collection website

Compendium Of TAXI Art Books Educational Supplements.

This Compendium brings together all thirteen supplements from the TAXI Art Books series on contemporary South African artists. Each chapter contains an introduction to the artist, worksheets and conceptual and practical projects, fact files, glossaries and bibliography. Learners and teachers are encouraged to draw on thier own resources of imagination and experience and, through discussion, collaboration and reflection, understand the artist’s work and try a variety of art-making exercises. The Compendium includes valuable material on how to conduct research, write art essays, avoid plagiarism, keep a visual diary and do art presentations.

Although William Kentridge is now well known for his films, drawings, and theatre productions, he began his artistic career learning etching at the Johannesburg Art Foundation under Bill Ainslie. He spent two years teaching printmaking at this Foundation and his earliest exhibitions featured his monotypes and etchings such as the Domestic Scenes series.

William Kentridge Prints is the first book to focus specifically on Kentridge’s formidable print oeuvre, filling a gap in published work on the artist to date. It is also the first major publication on William Kentridge to be published in South Africa. The book includes over 180 works and presents the full range and complexity of Kentridge’s printmaking, from his linocuts of the 1970s to his recent sophisticated and distinctive Thinking Aloud drypoints created while he was working on his production of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, which premiered in Brussels in April 2005.

David Krut began publishing William Kentridge editions in the 1990s and in 1997 compiled and edited a CD-ROM on the artist, the first publication on Kentridge to address the full range and complexity of his work. Krut compiled and edited the final print list for this book and contributed the Introduction, which gives a brief history of Kentridge’s projects and collaborations with printers.

The publication of this book coincides with a travelling exhibition that opened at the Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, Iowa in late 2004 and travels to other museums in the United States through 2007.

William Kentridge Prints includes a Foreword by Lesley Wright, Director of the Faulconer Gallery at Grinnell College, the Introduction for the original exhibition catalogue by Kay Wilson, Curator of the Faulconer Collection, and an essay by the award-winning poet, critic, and translator Susan Stewart, Professor of English at Princeton University. Stewart has published four books of poetry and several critical texts including The Open Studio: Essays on Art and Aesthetics (University of Chicago Press, January 2005).

In addition, the book includes a series of rare personal commentaries by Kentridge that give wonderful insight into the ideas and working methods of an obsessive and highly sophisticated printmaker.

See also

Importance of Kentridge’s work, Cronje 2004

Everybody’s favourite rabbit has a wonderful time in this colouring book, playing with her friend, making masks, visiting her grandparents and even flying in a plane! Now you can join in the fun, colouring in the pictures with crayons or paints, making sure that Miffy’s world is as bright and colourful as ever.

TAF004 – DESIGN INITIATIVES FEATURED ON THIS DVD ELIZABETH JANSE VAN VUUREN and WEYERS MARAIS, two young Cape Town-based designers who stand out in the design industry for their innovative and original work.

  For the fourth DVD in the TAXI Art Films series, two young designers share their success stories and give advice to young people who would like to pursue careers in design. Elizabeth Janse van Vuuren is the Creative Director of CHEW magazine – “your free online glossy” – a digital publication dedicated to showcasing cutting-edge material from creatives countrywide. From photography to fashion to the latest in design, Elizabeth is responsible for conceptualising and compiling each issue of CHEW from start to finish. Weyers Marais is a student at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. His determination to put into practice the knowledge he gains from his studies and the  professionals he comes into contact with has jump-started his design career. Weyers launched his own business, Weyers Marais Design, with two lamp designs that featured in the 2009 Design Indaba Expo. TAXI Art Films is an extension of TAXI Art Books, the first major series by a South African publisher on contemporary South African artists. South Africa’s wonderfully diverse cultural heritage contributes to inspired artmaking and other creative activities, and TAXI Art Films showcases some of this local art and design talent. The films continue the dedication of David Krut Publishing to promoting and celebrating South African art, culture, design and architecture both locally and abroad. Other TAXI Art Films: TAF001 – Touring the Constitutional Court of South Africa with Justice Albie Sachs TAF002 – Spier Contemporary 2007, featuring Andrew Putter, Andrzej Nowicki, Peter van Heerden and Mduduzi Nyembe. TAF003 – Spier Contemporary 2007, featuring Peter van Heerden and Leila Anderson, Brett Bailey, Ruth Levin, Mwenya Kabwe, Chuma Sopotela and Kemang WaLehulere. Forthcoming TAXI titles: TAF005 – Friedrich Danielis in conversation with David Krut TAF006 – Pancho Guedes: An Alternative Modernist JOIN TAXI ART FILMS on Facebook.

Art and Justice: The Art of the Constitutional Court of South Africa

Light On A Hill: Building the Constitutional Court of South Africa

Touring the Constitutional Court of South Africa with Justice Albie Sachs

“This is the most beautiful court building I have ever seen.” US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Consitutional Court of South Africa Deluxe package from David Krut Publishing has been released to coincide with the book and lecture tour undertaken by Justice Albie Sachs and Dr Bronwyn Law-Viljoen to various United States universities and law schools at the beginning of 2009 where the deluxe package was available for David Krut Projects, New York for $85.

Light on a Hill: Building the Constitutional Court of South Africa
Photographs by Angela Buckland
When the new Constitutional Court of South Africa was officially opened in 2004 it caused a stir in the legal and architectural fraternities. It was built on the site of the notorious Old Fort Prison that had once held Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela and was an unlikely building for a court. Light on a Hill: Building the Constitutional Court of South Africa, published to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the South African Constitution, is a fitting tribute to the way in which the Constitutional Court has transformed the forbidding Old Fort Prison of Johannesburg into a beacon of hope that takes its place as a pioneer building in the South African architectural vernacular.

Art and Justice: The Art of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
Photographs by Ben Law-Viljoen
This magnificent new book celebrates and documents the artworks integrated into and collected for the Constitutional Court of South Africa. The book pays tribute to the extraordinary vision of the architects and judges of the Court who sought to bring together, in the most inspiring, innovative and dignified way possible, art and the workings of justice, and to give a public soul to the new Court building. Art and Justice serves as a record of the Court’s growing collection of paintings, prints, fibre art and sculptures, but more importantly it pays tribute to an extraordinary vision: to bring together art and justice in South Africa’s most important public building.

Touring the Consitutional Court of South Africa with Justice Albie Sachs
A documentary film by Lomin Saayman and Lloyd Ross
This DVD takes the viewer on a tour of the Court with Justice Albie Sachs. Justice Sachs, who has been a life-long fighter for human rights, was appointed as a Founder Member of the Constitutional Court by President Nelson Mandela in October 1994. His deep interest in art and architecture is reflected in the Court’s unique collection of
loose and integrated artworks. The collection gives this world-renowned building a special warmth and humanity and helps to change our thinking about public buildings in general and courts in particular.

In another move to commemorate the publication of Light On A Hill and Art and Justice the Philatelic Society, in collaboration with the Constitutional Court, has released a series of limited edition stamps and envelopes that are available from all David Krut Publishing bookstores. The stamps are decorated with selected images from the architecture and art respectively of the Constitutional Court.

above: Constitutional Court floorplan