Showing 1–16 of 77 results

  • A Long Way Home-Migrant Worker Worlds

    R400

    A Long Way Home captures the humanity, agency and creative modes of self-expression of the millions of workers who helped to build and shape modern South Africa.

    The book spans a three-hundred-year history beginning with the exportation of slave labour from Mozambique in the eighteenth century and ending with the strikes and tensions on the platinum belt in recent years. It shows not only the age-old mobility of African migrants across the continent but also, with the growing demand for labour in the mining industry, the importation of Chinese indentured migrant workers.

    Contributions include 18 essays and over 90 artworks and photographs that traverse homesteads, chiefdoms and mining hostels, taking readers into the materiality of migrant life and its customs and traditions, including the rituals practiced by migrants in an effort to preserve connections to “home” and create a sense of “belonging”. The essays and visual materials provide multiple perspectives on the lived experience of migrant labourers and celebrate their extraordinary journeys.

    A Long Way Home was conceived during the planning of an art exhibition entitled ‘Ngezinyawo: Migrant Journeys’ at Wits Art Museum. The interdisciplinary nature of the contributions and the extraordinary collection of images selected to complement and expand on the text make this a unique collection.

  • Beadwork, Art and the Body

    R380

    South African beadwork has a rich and diverse history and is abundantly represented in the beaded art pieces in the Wits Art Museum (WAM) collection. Some works date back to the 4th century CE but most date from the 19th to the 21st centuries. Currently numbering over 9 000 items, the three major collecting areas of classical, historical and contemporary African artworks are broad in their geographical range and deep in some local areas of specialisation.

    Paying homage to this collection, Beadwork, Art and the Body is a compilation of essays by scholars who have researched and written about the traditions, practices and aesthetic forms of beadwork in southern Africa. The book covers an expansive history of beadwork in South Africa from the 19th century to the contemporary moment. The artists and the beadwork featured range from Sotho-, Tsonga-, Xhosa- and Zulu-speakers, ending with a focus on fashion designer Laduma Ngxokolo, whose work has been inspired by Xhosa beadwork. Questions of ethnic affiliation and beadwork patterns are explored in relation to the different aesthetic forms of beadwork and its use as a marker of identity and status within and beyond communities.

     

  • Beyond the Readymade

    R180
  • Booknesses: Artist’s Books from the Jack Ginsberg Collection

    R500

    The exhibition Booknesses: Artists’ Books from the Jack Ginsberg Collection formed part of the larger Booknesses enterprise. The exhibition, consisting of 229 international and 29 local artists’ books and an extensive catalogue, was one of the largest and most ambitious exhibitions of its kind globally. Curated by David Paton, with the assistance of Rosalind Cleaver and Jack Ginsberg, the…

  • Cooked in South Africa

    Cooked in South Africa is an initiative of Wish Upon a Star, a non-profit fund-raising charity, and all proceeds from the sales of this book will be donated to children living with disability.

  • David Goldblatt: The Last Interview

    R1020

    Accompanied by a selection of some of David Goldblatt’s (1930–2018) lesser-known photographs, this distilled dialogue is drawn directly from the recordings of a roving conversation with the photographer conducted three months before his death in June 2018. Goldblatt was born in Randfontein?a mining town on the Witwatersrand gold reef?in 1930, the grandson of Lithuanian-Jewish migrants…

  • Doing Hair: Art and Hair in Africa

    R170

    Catalogue of the Exhibition, Wits arts Museum, 2014 This publication accompanies an exhibition of the same title at Wits art Museum, 20 August – 2 November 2014.

  • Domestic Scenes

    R2000

    Domestic Scenes feature the entire 54 images of Kentridge’s early series of work Domestic Scenes (1980). Domestic Scenes is published by Steidl, an international publisher of photobooks, and features an exquisite hard cover design with Kentridge’s signature on the cover page and a beautiful A1 poster of a photograph of young William Kentridge in his Parktown studio in Johannesburg, South Africa.

  • Domestic Scenes – William Kentridge (Signed)

    R4000

    Domestic Scenes feature the entire 54 images of Kentridge’s early series of work Domestic Scenes (1980). Domestic Scenes is published by Steidl, an international publisher of photobooks, and features an exquisite hard cover design with Kentridge’s signature on the cover page and a beautiful A1 poster of a photograph of young William Kentridge in his Parktown studio in Johannesburg, South Africa.

    There are 16 variations of the book available, each distinct with a different front cover image of one of the works in the Domestic Scenes series. Clients are welcomed and encouraged to ask for the front cover variation that they would like.

  • Fabergé: Romance to Revolution

    R1400

    A beautifully illustrated book that explores the history and legacy of the House of Fabergé, from its origins in Russia–and its role in the glamorous world of the Romanovs–to global recognition.

  • Grass you can swim in

    R480

    Heidi Fourie’s Artist Book Grass You Can Swim In is a limited edition publication produced in collaboration with the artist and David Krut Publishing. The book includes an essay by Jacqueline Flint, full colour images of the entire body of work included in Fourie’s solo project comprising paintings as well as the accomplished debut series of fine art editions and unique watercolour transfers made in collaboration with the David Krut Workshop between 2020 and 2021.

  • Hogarth in Johannesburg: Collector’s Edition : Etchings and Engravings by Robert Hughes, Deborah Bell and William Kentridge

    R1000

    Hogarth in Johannesburg is the timely product of several paths crossing. As the model of Hogarth suggests, some of these paths involve the tradition of art history and the position of the three Johannesburg artists within it.

  • Jackson Hlungwani

    R1500

    Hlungwani’s body of sculpture articulates his spiritual journey, his insights, and his world in three-dimensional form aiding him in his life’s mission as orator, teacher, healer, and visionary. The sculptures are evidence not only of a remarkable sustained artistic endeavour, but are also, by nature, sculptures that teach. Hlungwani created specific works for the two altars on the hilltop site that he called ‘New Jerusalem.’ These sculptures – as well as many others – expressed his immanent relationship with God, Christ and the Archangels Gabriel and Michael. His numinous world was then directed to his community in his teachings, and beyond, as he freely shared his vision of a new world order.

  • Jeremy Wafer (Signed)

    R1180

    South African sculptor Jeremy Wafer was born in 1953 in Durban and is Professor of Sculpture in the School of Arts of the University of the Witwatersrand. He was awarded the Standard Bank National Drawing Prize in 1987 and the Sasol Wax Art Award in 2006.  

  • Karoo Roads Series I-III

    R800

    Karoo Roads  is a collector’s treasure box of trips and tales gathered from more than a decade of research and rubber-on-the-road experiences, penned and photographed by two award-winning travel writers, Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit, who will introduce you to some of the loveliest, toughest, most creative and downright crazy characters, critters and cultures thriving in the Dry Country.

  • Life-Line Knot: Six Object Biography

    R230

    A collection of esays about objects in the collection at Wits Art Museum, based on research by postgraduate History of Art students at the University of the Witwatersrand and their lecturers: Joni Brenner, Laura De Becker, Stacey Vorster and Justine Wintjes. This book accompanies the exhibition at the Standard Bank Gallery.

    “A particularly exciting and important aspect of this project is the reinvigoration of art history in a South African context. Through the association with Wits Art Museum, students have the privilege of doing original research with objects, of seeking links across disciplines and time-frames, and of finding new paths beyond western-tradition art historical practice” Anonymous peer reviewer