Adrian Kohler
Co-founder and Artistic Director of Handspring Puppet Company, Adrian Kohler is considered to be one of the world’s leading experts in his medium. His mother was a thoughtful amateur pup-peteer, who with his father, as yacht builder and cabinetmaker, gave him a firm grounding in woodwork and the creation of moving figures. A BA Fine Art at the University of Cape Town fol-lowed. He then spent a year at The Space Theatre – the city’s only non-racial venue at the time and another in Birmingham U.K. at the Canon Hill Arts Centre and Weld Community Arts Centre. Kohler then moved to Botswana to run the National Popular Theatre Program for three years. His puppets for Handspring have been widely acclaimed and exhibited. He has had a solo retro-spective at the National Gallery in South Africa, and groups of his works have been shown at The Barbican Art Gallery, London and The Museum for African Art, New York. His puppets are held in public and private collections including the Constitutional Court in South Africa, the Mu-nich Stadt Museum in Germany, and the Old Mutual Art Collection. Kohler received the Michae-lis Prize, a lifetime achievement award from Tshwane University [2006] and an honorary doctor-ate in literature UCT [2012].
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