Adrian Kohler
| Artist Name: | Adrian Kohler |
| Nationality: | South African |
| Year of birth: | 1953 |
| Artist information: | Adrian Kohler (b. 1953, Cape Town) is a sculptor and puppet designer best known as co-founder, with Basil Jones, of the Handspring Puppet Company (1981). Trained as a fine artist at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, Kohler began his career making carved wooden puppets and experimental theatre objects, which quickly established Handspring as a pioneering force in South African performance. Kohler’s practice is rooted in carving, construction, and the imaginative animation of wood and other materials. His works are both sculptural objects and performance instruments, existing in a liminal space between artwork and actor. This duality became internationally celebrated through productions such as War Horse (2007), where Handspring’s life-sized horse puppets captivated audiences worldwide. The Dogs of War (ca. 1993–94), now housed in the Constitutional Court Art Collection, belongs to Kohler’s early Johannesburg period. Made shortly after his relocation from Cape Town, the pair of carved wooden dog puppets carry with them the symbolic weight of Shakespeare’s phrase “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war,” a warning against violence once unleashed. Though sculptural in form, they bear the spirit of animism that underpins Kohler’s work: objects waiting to be brought to life. By donating Dogs of War to the CCAC, the Handspring Puppet Company linked its practice to the Court’s broader collection, which foregrounds art as a vehicle for memory, justice, and reflection in post-apartheid South Africa (Gevisser, 2004; CCAC Records, 2025). The work embodies both his personal philosophy of puppetry as a space of shifting meanings and the Court’s mission to hold space for art that warns, remembers, and invites dialogue. References
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