Research Catalog
Fire walker : William Kentridge, Gerhard Marx
- Title
- Fire walker : William Kentridge, Gerhard Marx / edited by Oliver Barstow & Bronwyn Law-Viljoen.
- Publication
- [Johannesburg] : Fourthwall Books, 2011.
Items in the Library & Off-site
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Use in library | NB198.3.K46 F57 2011 | Off-site |
Details
- Additional Authors
- Description
- 123 pages : illustrations (chiefly color); 30 cm
- Summary
- "In 2009, William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx were commissioned to make a public sculpture for the City of Johannesburg to be installed in time for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. The sculpture is based on a drawing by Kentridge of a woman street vendor - known colloquially as a fire walker - carrying a burning brazier on her head. The eleven-metre-high striding figure would take her place at the foot of the Queen Elizabeth Bridge on a site formerly used by informal traders and taxi washers. Eschewing the bronze monumentalism of traditional public sculpture, Kentridge and Marx devised a figure made up of steel plates that resolves into a coherent image from one vantage point only. A pedestrian passing the sculpture has only a momentary view of the striding woman before the sculpture 'fragments' into its black and white parts. Fire Walker represents not a grand public office-bearer, but an ordinary citizen whose survival depends on her ability to negotiate often-contested urban terrain. began as a project to document the making of Fire Walker has evolved, in this book, into a number of conversations about - and meditations on - the meaning of public art. Essays by Mark Gevisser, Mpho Matsipa, Alexandra Dodd, and Jonathan Cane and Zen Marie prise open critical questions about public space in Johannesburg; interviews with the various collaborators on the sculpture reveal the complexities and challenges of creating such a work; and the extraordinary images of the construction of the sculpture, alongside two photo essays on street vendors and old city monuments, suggest the metaphorical power of Fire Walker as well as the fragile hold of street vendors over their small share of city space."--Publisher's description.
- Subjects
- Note
- Issued in slipcase.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references.
- Contents
- Introduction / Bronwyn Law-Viljoen -- Now you see her, now you don't / Alexandra Dodd -- Six conversations / Oliver Barstow -- Constructing Fire walker / John Hodgkiss -- Urban mythologies / Mpho Matsipa -- Three fire walkers / Ben Law-Viljoen -- Walking with/walking alongside/walking against? / Zen Marie and Jonathan Cane -- Six monuments / Alistair McLachlan -- Ma Firewalker and Mr Typewriter-head: maps, Marx and Kentridge / Mark Gevisser.
- ISBN
- 9780986985027 (standard ed.)
- 0986985023 (standard ed.)
- 9780986985010 (deluxe ed.)
- 0986985015 (deluxe ed.)
- LCCN
- 2011509013
- OCLC
- ocn753623569
- 753623569
- SCSB-5646239
- Owning Institutions
- Columbia University Libraries