Public Intimacy brings together 25 artists and collectives who disrupt expected images of a country known largely through its apartheid history. The book presents a critical sensibility that existed but was mostly overlooked during apartheid, and which is now shared by many artists and writers of a new generation--the expression of the poetics and politics of the "ordinary act." Public Intimacy includes works by Ian Berry, Chimurenga, Ernest Cole, DavidGoldblatt, Handspring Puppet Company, Nicholas Hlobo, ijusi (Garth Walker), Anton Kannemeyer, William Kentridge, Donna Kukama, Terry Kurgan, Sabelo Mlangeni, Santu Mofokeng, Billy Monk, Anthea Moys, Zanele Muholi, Sello Pesa and Vaughn Sadie, Cameron Platter, Lindeka Qampi, Jo Ractliffe, Athi-Patra Ruga, Berni Searle, Penny Siopis, Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse and Kemang Wa Lehulere.