When artist Robin Rhode wanted a canvas for his newest work, he discovered it at an deserted sports activities floor in his dysfunctional hometown of Johannesburg.
Beneath the waist-high grass, damaged bottles and occasional bullet casing, he uncovered a decades-old miniature golf course, indoor soccer fields, and a tennis coaching wall. And that’s the place he began drawing.
‘Work is deeply rooted in Johannesburg’
The 48-year-old grew up not removed from the sports activities floor however 20 years in the past moved to Berlin as his profession took off internationally. He paints on partitions, units hearth to pianos, and attracts on a regular basis objects like keys and lightbulbs in chalk and charcoal.
“My work is deeply rooted in Johannesburg, and I believe one of many causes is that the town features as a sort of tough, decayed canvas in some ways, that’s nearly calling for a brand new narrative to be drawn or painted” onto it, he informed AFP.
Usually Rhode works in outside areas the place a lot of his work will wash away – the pictures preserved in typically playful images, the place he or his collaborators pose with the drawings.
His work has been purchased by heavyweight establishments just like the Museum of Trendy Artwork in New York. He has additionally collaborated with U2 and received the 2018 Zurich Artwork Prize. Though he might work wherever, Johannesburg retains calling him again.
“Getting back from Berlin, and travelling across the metropolis, and seeing the collapse of those constructions, it’s had a very profound impact on me,” he stated.
“It’s motivated me to come back again to South Africa and to revitalise these constructions.”
Deserted areas
Simply 15 years in the past, Cecil Payne Stadium had undergone an enormous improve to turn into a coaching floor when South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup.
Now deserted by the town, the fencing is slowly being stolen on the market as scrap. Two indoor soccer fields are a weed mattress. A personal sports activities membership is maintaining the primary fields functioning at the same time as squatters construct encampments in a close-by wetland on the foot of a mountainous mine dump.
Johannesburg has had 10 mayors in eight years, some serving simply weeks, making native authorities resemble a sport of musical chairs.
Amid the political chaos, a regional commuter prepare service collapsed, avenue lights went darkish, and routine upkeep at locations just like the stadium merely stopped.
Far cry from the cracked courts
For Rhode, the decay offered inspiration for a set referred to as Joburg Hymn. He drew lightbulbs on the tennis courts whereas his brother Wesley flew a drone overhead to take pictures of him posing in black with the drawings.
One other collection combines the visuals with music carried out by Cape City piano prodigy Qden Blaauw, and an unique music by Johannesburg performers Maxime Scheepers, Love Sechabe and Kevin Narain.
“Working with Robin at all times jogs my memory to be hopeful and optimistic,” Narain stated.
“What we do provides new life to the panorama. It revives a forgotten previous and makes it related. I at all times depart set feeling hopeful about what I do.”
The music they created performs over the pictures in one among Johannesburg’s most prestigious galleries, CIRCA, with extra pictures on the close by Stevenson Gallery.
Each venues are a far cry from the cracked courts the place Rhode’s drawings are already fading however which offer fertile floor for his creativity.
“The tough Johannesburg canvas serves as inspiration for me… It serves as a way for me to come back again and inject a sort of vitality and life, a brand new narrative into these decayed worn-out areas,” Rhode stated.
“And in addition to permit my artwork to operate as a critique to numerous political constructions which are collapsing. I need to use my artwork as a mechanism for change.”
By Garrin Lambley © Agence France-Presse
