Art Book Recommendations: Clarke's Bookshop

Clarke's Bookshop has been in Long Street in the centre of Cape Town since 1957. Founded by Anthony Clarke as a secondhand bookshop, we began specialising in Africana in the 1970s. The new books section began with a shelf of South African books, which has grown to such an extent that we now specialise in books on Africa, with a particular focus on Southern Africa. We still have a wonderful selection of general secondhand and remaindered titles, as well as a room set aside for Africana. We are a library supplier. Our customers include local and international libraries, as well as public libraries in the Western Cape.

 

 

 

 

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With contributions by Antawan I. Byrd, Khwezi Gule, Ashraf Jamal, Felicia Mings, Mongane Wally Serote and Warren Siebrits

 

This book was preceded by an exhibition of the same title organised by the Art Institute of Chicago, April 27 to September 2, 2019.

 

In 1977, at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, a group of South African cultural activists formed the collective known as Medu Art Ensemble. In 1978, members relocated to Gaborone, Botswana, where the collective comprised more than 60 visual artists, performers and writers, mostly from South Africa, although some were from Botswana, Canada, Cuba, Sweden and the USA. The word medu means "roots" in Sesotho.

 

The collective disbanded in 1985, following the South African Defence Force's raid on Gaborone, which resulted in the death of twelve people, including four Medu members.

 

 

 

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Published on the occasion of the exhibition, International Center of Photography, New York, 2020.

 

Photographer and filmmaker, Tyler Mitchell's vision of a Black utopia.

 

Includes contributions from Hans Ulrich Obris, Deborah Willis, Mirjam Kooiman and Isolde Brielmaier.

 

Tyler Mitchell (b. 1995) is based in Brooklyn, New York. His photography has been published in Vogue, Dazed, Teen Vogue, and i-D Magazine, and he has shot for companies such as Prada, Mercedes Benz, Marc Jacobs, Converse, Nike, and Ray-Ban.

 

 

 

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Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Huis Marseille Museum of Photography, Amsterdam, 2022.

 

Includes texts by Emmanuel Balogun, Athi Mongezeleli Joja, Tshepiso Mabula ka Ndongeni and Tshepiso Mazibuko.

 

South African photographer Sabelo Mlangeni was born in 1980 in Driefontein in Mpumalanga. In 2001, he moved to Johannesburg and graduated from the Market Photo Workshop in 2004. He won the Tollman Award for the Visual Arts in 2009.

 

 

 

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Special edition of Pan-African photography. Photographers include Andile Buka, Athi-Patra Ruga, Imraan Christian, I See A Different You, Lebogang Tlhako, Lebohang Kganye, Lusanda Ndita, Mary Sibande, Mikhailia Petersen and Trevor Stuurman.

 

"The Manor is a community of creatives who value expression, individuality, and storytelling. Our multidisciplinary approach allows us to explore various art forms and mediums, from fashion and design to photography and film. Recently, The Manor was named as one of the top 20 'Best Cultural Spots' in National Geographic’s 'Best Of The World 2024'"

 

South African photographer Trevor Stuurman is the founder of The Manor.

 

Azu Nwagbogu is the founder and director of the African Artists’ Foundation.

 

 

 

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A selection from the more than 1 500 photographs Marilyn Nance made while serving as the photographer for the North American delegation. FESTAC'77, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, took place in Lagos, Nigeria, from January 15 to February 12, 1977.

 

"If you want to see what it looked like to have 17,000 Africans gathered together from across the continent and the diaspora, living, sharing, thinking, and performing together for thirty days in what was essentially a temporary Pan-African nation. Then this book is for you ... These images reflect my romantic notions of Pan-African unity, my nostalgia for the incredible celebration of world culture, and hint at the terror to come after the festivals end." Marilyn Nance, from the afterword.

 

Marilyn Nance (b. 1953) is a 2020 Arts Matters Grant recipient and a two-time finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Award in Humanities Photography. She lives in Brooklyn.

 

 

 

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The first edition of this book was a set of ten full-colour photo books, published in South Africa.

 

“Johannesburg’s inner city can seem like a malevolent playground with its equipment scattered across broken fields, but it is still a place for life to reinvent itself. Tanya Zack and Mark Lewis give us stories and images of individuals residing in neighbourhoods heading in all directions at once, places where everything is up for grabs. As such, these stories are replete with wild mixtures of various feelings and astute intelligence, reminding us how little we know about the cities where we live.” AbdouMaliq Simone, author of The Surrounds: Urban Life within and beyond Capture

 

“Wake Up, This is Joburg is a fantastic, creative work that offers a broad look at one of Africa’s most vibrant and intriguing cities. By digging down into a range of compelling stories, Mark Lewis and Tanya Zack give their readers a rich and textured entrée into the inventiveness, precarity, and contingency that shape the lived experiences of Johannesburg’s residents. Illuminating parts of the city that readers may know little or nothing about, this book is a beautifully executed, smart, and elegant contribution." Danny Hoffman, author of Monrovia Modern: Urban Form and Political Imagination in Liberia

 

Tanya Zack is an urban planner, writer, and Visiting Researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand.

 

Mark Lewis is a photographer who lives in Johannesburg.

 

 

 

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"Radical Solidarity: A reader brings together the ideas and projects of some of the world’s most active and inspiring radical thinkers, artists and activists committed to fostering the arts from Africa and its diaspora. The publication emerges from the proceedings of the Radical Solidarity Summit, a week-long online gathering hosted by Zeitz MOCAA in September 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the intention to not only address the urgent issues of this moment, but to explore the alternative futures, and possibilities that can be forged in the cultural field through acts of radical solidarity."

 

Contributions include the essays, "Conversations Beyond Jousting, Museums Without Frontiers" by Albie Sachs; extracts from Infinite Riches by Ben Okri, The Exploded View by Ivan Vladislaviċ and Green as the Sky Is Blue by Eben Venter, and graphic recordings by Abdul Dube.

 

Dialogues include:

 

"Solidarity: Historic contexts of Pan-Africanism and the Transnational Struggle" with Achille Mbembe and Albie Sachs (moderated by Koyo Kouoh)

 

"Urban Imaginaries, Mobilities and Why So Many Borders" with Edgar Pieterse, Mpho Matsipa, Tan Tavengwa and Emeka Okereke (moderated by Storm Janse van Rensburg)

 

"Mother I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You" with Lemohang Jeremiah Moses and Phokeng Tshepo Seta

 

 

 

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The book is the result of a four-year research project, Platform/ Platform, led by Kim Gurney into the working principles of independent art spaces in five cities: Nairobi, Accra, Cairo, Addis Ababa and Dar es Salaam. The key spaces that participated in the research were GoDown Arts Centre, ANO Institute of Arts and Knowledge, Townhouse Gallery, Zoma Museum and Nafasi Art Space.

 

"In an engaging analysis of five African independent art spaces Kim Gurney convincingly highlights the powerful artistic and political potential of such autonomous art initiatives: to formulate novel propositions that creatively engage with the continent’s varied social realities; to redesign its material realities; to innovate the contents of what constitutes its public spheres; and to generate imaginings of alternative futures that bypass the tired discourses and practices of institutionalised political levels in order to embrace more inclusive and collective modes of living together. Panya Routes is an original, hopeful and timely reflection on the role of public art to rethink urban worlds in Africa and beyond." Filip De Boeck, Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, and co-author of Suturing the City, living together in Congo’s urban worlds

 

Writer and visual artist Kim Gurney is Research Associate at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town. She is the author of August House is Dead, Long Live August House! The story of a Johannesburg atelier and The Art of Public Space: Curating and re-imagining the ephemeral city.

 

 

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Kim Gurney responds to the Association for Visual Arts (AVA) archive. The uncatalogued archival collection, spanning more than five decades, holds an array of documents, from exhibition information and correspondence to meeting minutes and financial records.

 

The AVA has been located in an old house, Richter Huis, in Cape Town City Centre, since 1971.

 

Includes the essay, "Ghosts and Gems. The AVA belongs to no-one and to everyone" by Mirjam Ashmal.

 

"A journey into an institutional archive is in many ways a confrontation with the making of the establishment itself. Kin Gurney's Flipside is a close and deep dive into the plurality of the AVA archives, which speak directly to the active history of 'instituting', and the many shapes and forms it has taken in parallel to the political history of art institutions in South Africa more generally." Huda Tayob, Architectural Studies, University of Manchester.

 

Writer, researcher, visual artist and former journalist Kim Gurney is based at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape and lives in Cape Town. She is the author of Panya Routes: Independent art spaces in Africa; August House is Dead, Long Live August House! The story of a Johannesburg atelier and The Art of Public Space: Curating and re-imagining the ephemeral city.

 

 

 

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Photographs by South African photographer Ernest Cole depicting Black lives in the United States during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

 

Contributions include:

 

"An Idea of Exile" by Raoul Peck

 

"Somewhat at Home" by Leslie M. Wilson

 

"When the Revolution Comes: the stateless Ernest Cole" by James Sanders.

 

Ernest Cole (1940-1990) photographed the brutality of apartheid in the 1950s and 1960s. He left South Africa in 1966, smuggling out his negatives, and settled in New York. His book House of Bondage was published the following year with his photographs, writings and first-person account.

 

 

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Texts by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, James Sanders and Mongane Wally Serote.

 

Ernest Cole (1940-1990) photographed the brutality of apartheid in the 1950s and 1960s. He left South Africa in 1966, smuggling out his negatives. House of Bondagewas published the following year with his writings and first-person account.

 

This edition includes:

 

"On Looking at House of Bondage Now: A lament, an indictment" by Mongane Wally Serote

 

"Black Spots, Photographic Spectres" by Oluremi C. Onabanjo

"The Spearpoint Pivoted: The rise of Ernest Cole" by James Sanders.