The TAXI Art Films series, a new initiative by David Krut Publishing (DKP), celebrates South African visual arts, artists and culture.
TAXI, as a brand, first emerged via a series of books, the first major series by a South African publisher on contemporary South African artists. The ever-growing series aims to improve visual literacy in South Africa and provide both educators and the general public with much-sought-after material on contemporary South African art.
No the TAXI brand has been attached to a series of films. By utilising a medium that is more direct and immediately expressive than print, the project embraces the fast-paced vitality of the TAXI concept.
Its painful history and its development as a young democracy has led the South African society into an interesting interstitial space in which past failures come face to face the possibility of future successes in a diverse cultural landscape that is constantly shifting and changing according to different views of transformation. One has to admit that the transition South Africans have had to make from the past into the future is always complex and often uncomfortable and traumatic. However, the diversity of cultural heritage that exists in South Africa can not be found anywhere else. The potential for inspired art-making that arises out of these circumstances is great, and TAXI Art Films has embarked on the ongoing adventure of capturing part of this process for the benefit of South Africans and an international audience alike.
The first films of the TAXI Art Films series are:
TAXI Art Films 001: Touring the Constitutional Court with Justice Albie Sachs
TAXI Art Films 002: Friedrich Danielis in Conversation with David Krut
TAXI Art Films 003: Spier Contemporary 2008 with Andrzej Nowicki, Andrew Putter, Peter van Heerden and Leila Anderson
TAXI Art Films 004: Spier Contemporary 2008 with Ruth Levin et al.
TAXI Art Films 005: Pancho Guedes
