1/13/2024 0 Comments Urban Tale free instalPonte was initially presented as “the ultimate in upwardly mobile, aspirant white South Africa”, embodying the synthesis of urban modernity with apartheid’s “twisted utopian project”. It’s like a roller-coaster of myth” reflecting “a metaphorical history of Johannesburg and South Africa”. “The best and worst of Johannesburg has constantly been projected on to this building. Ever since its completion in 1976, Ponte has been “a crucible for people’s mythologies,” Subotzky says. When a journalist friend persuaded him to go to the tower to take a few snaps, though, he realised that, although images of the building’s core were common, nobody had “really engaged with the people and the history of the building in a thorough way”. Looming over the skyline, the modernist tube was “Jo’burg’s biggest cliché” every photographer “worth his salt” had taken a picture inside its core. When Subotzky moved to the city in 2008, he deliberately avoided Ponte in his search for a new photographic project. His exhibition ‘Show ‘n Tell’ can also be seen at the Goodman Gallery, Cape Town. The book launches with an installation of some of the works at Ponte City itself and a panel discussion and book signing at the FNB Joburg Art Fair this past weekend. Many of these can be found in Ponte City, his book collaboration with British artist Patrick Waterhouse, which weaves photography, essays and found documents to showcase a visually rich and complex history of the iconic Jo’burg building. “Everybody’s got a Ponte story,” says photographer Mikhael Subotzky. Mikhael Subotzky’s book collaboration with Patrick Waterhouse, showcases a visually rich and complex history of the iconic Jo’burg building, writes Alexander Matthews.
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