August House is Dead, Long Live August House!

August House is Dead, Long Live August House! The story of a Johannesburg Atelier’ (2017, Fourthwall Books) follows the trajectories of artworks and residents to render the entangled inner life of a studio building as a lens on uncertainty and larger urban transformation.

"In the east end of the inner city of Johannesburg, a former textiles factory undergoes a dramatic transformation to become, over the next several years, one of the city’s foremost artists’ studios. When the sale of the building seems imminent, not only must the artists face the daunting prospect of relocation, but a remarkable chapter in the complex narrative of contemporary South African art seems about to close. Sensing the importance of this moment, Kim Gurney, herself a former tenant of the atelier, follows the stories of several of the August House denizens through some of the artworks that came to life in their studios. The result is a fascinating study of the role of the atelier and its artists in South Africa’s fractious art world, and a consideration of the relationship between art and the ever-changing city of Johannesburg."

The book is published by Fourthwall Books (Johannesburg), designed by Carla Saunders and edited by Terry Kurgan (FW). It is produced in collaboration with University of Cape Town’s African Centre for Cities, where the author was formerly affiliated as a Research Associate, and published in association with the additional support of GCRO (Gauteng City-Region Observatory).

Commendations:

"With the eye of an urbanist, artist and resident, Kim Gurney [constructs] a compelling assemblage of individual, visual and urban narratives brilliantly illuminates the complex life of a building, August House, located in inner city Johannesburg. Her cast of characters—artists, workers, neighbours, August House and the city—lend poignant contours to the ebbs and flows of daily life,the pressures of gentrification, the ruthlessness of poverty, the radicality of the imagination and the ghosts of history."
—Mabel O. Wilson, Columbia University

"Kim Gurney’s biography of August House weaves together a diversity of … narratives that capture an intimate, layered view of a city in flux and the precarity of artists’ spaces in Johannesburg. August House is Dead, Long Live August House! sensitively explores the tensions between competing impulses in the city, and who ultimately gets to shape what Joburg is and who it is for."
—Mpho Matsipa, University of the Witwatersrand

Reviews:
https://www.urbanafrica.net/news/august-house-art-city-making-meet/