Art for the people

Perhaps among the most visible of these is the great eland statue on the corner of Bertha and Ameshoff Streets, and the Juta Street metal trees.

Stephen Hobbs of The Trinity Session spoke about his involvement in these artworks.

“Public art provides an opportunity for artists to not just make money, but to interpret things within the public realm. An artwork hung on a wall in a home or gallery is very different to a piece that will be placed in public, and this has an impact on an artist’s practice,” he said.

The Trinity Session began life as a collective made up of Hobbs, Marcus Neustetter and Kathryn Smith, around the time the Johannesburg Development Agency, under the direction of Graeme Reid, began to look at the relationship between creative industries and public art. In 2002, the collective became a closed corporation.

Hobbs said that, after the agency gave the go-ahead for the metal trees in Juta Street in 2005, stakeholder confidence was boosted. Around the same time, the Department of Arts and Culture rallied the artistic community in terms of a public art policy which would see up to one percent of city capital projects allocated to public art.

In 2009, the city council put out a call for a curator for all public art over a three-year period, as part of a public environment upgrade. The Trinity Session were the successful applicants, and for the past three years have been the city council’s appointed curators of all public art.

“Smith left the corporation, so Neustetter and I became the primary members. The work is subcontracted, and we have approximately 250 unknown or emerging artists on our books, as well as fabricators, researchers and designers.”

Among the artwork curated by The Trinity Session was William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx’s The Firewalker near the Queen Elizabeth Bridge, Winston Luthuli’s The Angel of the North near Constitution Hill, sculptures in Ernest Oppenheimer Park, and the BRT bus stations, each of which features sandblasted glass or steel artworks by various artists.

Hobbs said he had received nothing but positive feedback, mostly from people who lived in the inner city in the 60s and 70s.

“Does the average person on the street recognise the value of public art? Researchers I’ve worked with said their research showed that people do recognise these as valued urban objects, even if there’s a lack of understanding of what it is,” he said.

Future artworks to be unveiled by The Trinity Session will include a piece to commemorate Ferreira’s Camp, the original mining camp, and 2D and 3D murals for Braamfontein’s alleys.

Details: www.onair.co.za