Casspir is the anagrammed name for the armored personal carriers the South African Police (SAP) and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) developed in the 1980s for use in conflict zones and the forceful patrol of Black townships. The jumble of heads stacked at center derives from sketches Kentridge made in 1988 of Giotto’s early 14th-century frescoes in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence, which he combined here with his memories of sculptor Tony Cragg’s installation of a pile of portrait-like bronze casts of carved beetroots for the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale that same year.
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Inscription: Inscribed (lower left, in graphite): VII / X; signed (lower right, in graphite): WKentridge
[Gracie Mansion Gallery, New York, until 2001; sold to MMA]
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "William Kentridge," October 12, 2004–April 10, 2005, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "In Praise of Shadows: William Kentridge in the Collection," August 26, 2013–February 2, 2014, no catalogue.
Ari Sitas inWilliam Kentridge. Exh. cat., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Chicago, 2001, pp. 61–62, 151, no. 10, ill. p. 80 (color), dates it 1989 (not this edition).
Lisa M. Messinger in "Recent Acquisitions. A Selection: 2001–2002." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 60 (Fall 2002), p. 44, ill.
Susan Stewart inWilliam Kentridge: Prints. Exh. cat., Faulconer Gallery, Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, Grinnell College. Johannesburg, 2006, p. 18, ill. (not this edition).
William Kentridge inWilliam Kentridge: Prints. Exh. cat., Faulconer Gallery, Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, Grinnell College. Johannesburg, 2006, p. 36, ill. p. 37 (color).
Judith B. Hecker. William Kentridge: Trace, Prints from the Museum of Modern Art. New York, 2010, pp. 64–65, 68–70, colorpl. 3 (not this edition).
Jay Clarke. "The Politics of Geography and Process: Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now." Art in Print Review 1 (September–October 2011), p. 28, fig. 4 (color) (not this edition).
Judith B. Hecker. Impressions from South Africa: 1965 to Now. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York. New York, 2011, p. 15, ill. p. 45 (color) (not this edition).
Alissa Guzman. "Contemporary History Through Prints." hyperallergic.com. June 8, 2011, (not this edition).
William Kentridge and Rosalind C. Morris. That Which is Not Drawn: William Kentridge and Rosalind C. Morris, Conversations. London, 2014, p. 108, ill. p. 182.
William Kentridge (South African, born Johannesburg, 1955)
2000
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