Archive: Issue No. 69, May 2003

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NEWS

'Jhb Art City': The People Respond
by Sean O'Toole

The 'Jhb Art City' project first announced itself in spring 2002. Since then it has been a little confusing to quite follow who is spearheading this on-going initiative that aims to use Johannesburg's inner city as the backdrop and setting for a large outdoor gallery. When it was first launched in September 2002, to coincide with the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the prime mover was Saul Symanowitz, working in conjunction with the Central Johannesburg Partnership.

Since he organised the initial placement of 30 artworks across the city things have changed a little. For one thing the logo to the cellular phone network supplier Cell C now forms an integral part of the project, if not the entire inner city landscape. This 3D ad takeover of the city is however nothing new: witness the towering Vodacom neon sign atop the Ponte residential block.

The corporate takeover of the visual language of the city is however a peripheral concern here; it is the art that matters. And by all accounts the art is everywhere. Where formerly it was a bit of an adventure hunting down all 30 billboards from the initial campaign, now one can't but miss the artworks. They are literally everywhere.

"Generally art is a very exclusive pursuit in many senses," explained Saul Symanowitz as to the original intentions driving this project. "The average man in the street would never get the opportunity to be exposed to it, just because resources primarily stop him from doing that. What 'Jhb Art City' does is to bring art to the people rather than having to bring the people to the art. I hope it will strike a chord in a lot of people, that it will reveal a latent desire or interest they never knew they had and potentially change their lives for the better."

A noble gesture - in theory - Symanowitz's statement does prompt a simple question: what do those everyday people living and working in the city think of the art? In an on-going enquiry ArtThrob will report back the comments and reflections of people interviewed on the streets of Johannesburg.

>> To see what the people feel, click on the images which appear on the grid below.

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