Showing 1–16 of 67 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.  

  • 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

  • Listening to a Distant Thunder: The Art of Peter Clarke

    R1500

    Originally published by the Standard Bank as part of a curated exhibition in May 2011, this prestigious volume celebrates the life and works of Peter Clarke (1929-2014), one of South Africa’s foremost artists.
    A mere 500 copies were originally published, all taken up at the exhibition, and continued demand has led to its re-release.

     

  • Listening to a Distant Thunder: The Art of Peter Clarke (signed)

    R2500

    Originally published by the Standard Bank as part of a curated exhibition in May 2011, this prestigious volume celebrates the life and works of Peter Clarke (1929-2014), one of South Africa’s foremost artists.
    A mere 500 copies were originally published, all taken up at the exhibition.

    Signed by Philippa Hobbs, November 2014.

  • Mail & Guardian: Book of South African Women

  • MESSINA/MUSINA

    R520

    My essay comprises family portraits, landscapes and still lifes. This was largely determined by the equipment I was using at the time: a tripod-mounted, large-format camera.