Artist turns Johannesburg's decay and dysfunction into vast canvas

JOHANNESBURG - When artist Robin Rhode needed a canvas for his latest work, he found it at an abandoned sports ground in his dysfunctional hometown of Johannesburg.

Beneath the waist-high grass, broken bottles and occasional bullet casing, he uncovered a decades-old miniature golf course, indoor football fields, and a tennis training wall. And that's where he started drawing.

The 48-year-old grew up not far from the sports ground but 20 years ago moved to Berlin as his career took off internationally. He paints on walls, sets fire to pianos, and draws everyday objects like keys and lightbulbs in chalk and charcoal.

"My work is deeply rooted in Johannesburg, and I think one of the reasons is that the city functions as a kind of rough, decayed canvas in many ways, that's almost calling for a new narrative to be drawn or painted" onto it, he told AFP.

Often Rhode works in outdoor spaces where much of his work will wash away -- the images preserved in often playful photographs, where he or his collaborators pose with the drawings.

His work has been bought by heavyweight institutions like the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has also collaborated with U2 and won the 2018 Zurich Art Prize. Although he could work anywhere, Johannesburg keeps calling him back.

"Coming back from Berlin, and travelling around the city, and seeing the collapse of these structures, it's had a really profound effect on me," he said.

"It's motivated me to come back to South Africa and to revitalise these structures."

Abandoned spaces

Just 15 years ago, Cecil Payne Stadium had undergone a massive upgrade to become a training ground when South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup.

Now abandoned by the city, the fencing is slowly being stolen for sale as scrap. Two indoor soccer fields are a weed bed. A private sports club is keeping the main fields functioning even as squatters build encampments in a nearby wetland at the foot of a mountainous mine dump.

Johannesburg has had 10 mayors in eight years, some serving just weeks, making local government resemble a game of musical chairs.

Amid the political chaos, a regional commuter train service collapsed, street lights went dark, and routine maintenance at places like the stadium simply stopped.

For Rhode, the decay provided inspiration for a collection called Joburg Hymn. He drew lightbulbs on the tennis courts while his brother Wesley flew a drone overhead to take images of him posing in black with the drawings.

Another series combines the visuals with music performed by Cape Town piano prodigy Qden Blaauw, and an original song by Johannesburg performers Maxime Scheepers, Love Sechabe and Kevin Narain.

"Working with Robin always reminds me to be hopeful and optimistic," Narain said. "What we do gives new life to the landscape. It revives a forgotten past and makes it relevant. I always leave set feeling hopeful about what I do."

The music they created plays over the images in one of Johannesburg's most prestigious galleries, CIRCA, with more photos at the nearby Stevenson Gallery.

Both venues are a far cry from the cracked courts where Rhode's drawings are already fading but which provide fertile ground for his creativity.

"The rough Johannesburg canvas serves as inspiration for me... It serves as a means for me to come back and inject a kind of energy and life, a new narrative into these decayed worn-out spaces," Rhode said.

"And also to allow my art to function as a critique to various political structures that are collapsing. I want to use my art as a mechanism for change." - AFP