Notes

During the 1980s and 1990s, Christo Coetzee produced a number of mixed media works on paper, of which the depiction of a head became a recurrent theme. The inscription on the present lot reads “Ken Campbell in Jerusalem producing ‘Illuminatus’ at the Khan”. In 1967, the Khan Theatre opened as a repertory theatre and has since become central to Jerusalem’s arts and culture scene. Campbell was an English writer, actor, director, and comedian who co-founded the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool in 1976. The theatre was formed to stage an experimental adaptation of Illuminatus!, a nine-hour cycle of five plays based on the science fiction fantasy novel trilogy of the same name. Campbell went on to direct many more experimental theatre productions – e.g. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – and has been described as being “…the door through which many hundreds of kindred souls entered a madder, braver, brighter, funnier and more complex universe.”¹

1. Gemma Bodinetz (2008) "Ken Campbell: A Tribute", [Online], Available: https://web.archive.org/web/20080925081320/http://www.everymanplayhouse.com/news/full-story.asp?Article_ID=546 [2019, August 14]

Provenance

Deon Viljoen.

Private Collection.