Art accompanies and signifies the aftermath of apartheid

A decade or so ago, I commiserated with a friend visiting Johannesburg who had asked the concierge at the last remaining five-star hotel in the city center about a good walking route, only to be told he couldn't safely leave the building on foot, and that taxis weren't a good bet either.

Since then, I've been to Joburg several times, most recently to be impressed by the collective willpower that seems determined to turn the place around, a willpower epitomized by Kim Berman, founder of the Artist Proof Studio, a multiracial print and paper-making facility whose Newtown headquarters burned to the ground last year in a terrible accident that killed one artist and destroyed years of work by others.

Berman isn't one to give up. Thanks to an international fund-raising campaign that included a $100,000 Ford Foundation grant, Artist Proof has moved to greatly expanded headquarters in a former bus depot. The new space is on two floors: The top is a studio for professionals, the lower one is for community projects and a shop where prints and handmade paper goods are sold.

During my stay, Artist Proof held a ceremony in the shell of its old building, to mark the move to the new one. Linda Givon, South Africa's top art dealer, whose Goodman Gallery on the outskirts of Johannesburg shows the best of the country's contemporary art, donated huge portfolios of start-up supplies to the artists who had lost not only their work, but also the paper, pigments, and other supplies they needed. The room also contained art made after the fire, out of remains including burned metal and scorched papers. A charred wire sculpture is obviously an abstracted bird.

"A phoenix rising from the ashes?" I asked its maker.

"No," he responded solemnly, "actually it's a duck.