Dorothee Kreutzfeldt
THE IMMINENT INAUGURATION OF THE 5TH CORNER
- From a series of paintings in progress
09/12/2010 - 30/12/2010
Two Men on a Bench, acrylic on canvas, 180 x 400cm, 2010.
(Temporary installation, End Street, Doornfontein, Johannesburg)
The exhibition comprises a group of paintings which developed over the last two years; they are, in many ways, cued by the pace, drama and economy of urban development and planning; what is, to varying degrees, lost or gained, newly occupied or already abandoned; what emerges in the process. The paintings are less of a description (of these processes), rather claim to operate in a moment of accumulation or reconfiguring.
"At the corner of Commissioner and Rissik, a newly furnished building. Opposite from the ‘Shakespeare House’ (still under construction) and once the seat of the Johannesburg Building Society, it now houses residential units and retail space on the ground floor, owned and managed by City Property, one of the major property development companies in inner city Johannesburg, operating since 1968 (“We change streets not names”*).
It is here that the 5th corner is potentially inaugurated: a painting for a shelf in the not yet furnished shop; a painting for the nearly renovated curtain wall; for the cement benches on the pavement. They promise the image of a future conversation, two people watching their surrounds, their public.
I saw some horses cross the street yesterday, the equestrian police unit, an unusual sight. You once showed me the scene in the Godfather, the horse-head in the bed, a nightmare. Like a leg-less chair. Not that the one calls up the other. More perhaps the incident with a man on Kerk street (which sounds like Dorp street). As he passed me, I slowed down. All of us did.
A hotel nearby with strict entrance rules and fees. Lost and won you say. The pavement across the road is a stones-throw away - by proxy - impossible to separate perspective from situation. A half finished painting, more like a phrase. "
- Dorothee Kreutzfeldt
* http://www.cityproperty.co.za/Cityprop-flash/city_propvid.html
"At the corner of Commissioner and Rissik, a newly furnished building. Opposite from the ‘Shakespeare House’ (still under construction) and once the seat of the Johannesburg Building Society, it now houses residential units and retail space on the ground floor, owned and managed by City Property, one of the major property development companies in inner city Johannesburg, operating since 1968 (“We change streets not names”*).
It is here that the 5th corner is potentially inaugurated: a painting for a shelf in the not yet furnished shop; a painting for the nearly renovated curtain wall; for the cement benches on the pavement. They promise the image of a future conversation, two people watching their surrounds, their public.
I saw some horses cross the street yesterday, the equestrian police unit, an unusual sight. You once showed me the scene in the Godfather, the horse-head in the bed, a nightmare. Like a leg-less chair. Not that the one calls up the other. More perhaps the incident with a man on Kerk street (which sounds like Dorp street). As he passed me, I slowed down. All of us did.
A hotel nearby with strict entrance rules and fees. Lost and won you say. The pavement across the road is a stones-throw away - by proxy - impossible to separate perspective from situation. A half finished painting, more like a phrase. "
- Dorothee Kreutzfeldt
* http://www.cityproperty.co.za/Cityprop-flash/city_propvid.html
Dorothee Kreutzfeldt works and lives in Johannesburg. She completed her MFA with distinction at the WITS School of Arts in 2004. Since then she has been teaching regularly at the WITS School of Arts and the Market Photo Workshop. Most of her work over the last years has been defined by collaborations, often within specific urban contexts. She co-founded the Joubert Park Project in 2000, a non-profit group that set up a range of projects in inner city Johannesburg. From 2004 onwards, the JPP drove the development of the historic Drill Hall, a former military base and later occupied by squatters, into a multi-use, public heritage site and cultural platform with an international artist in residence programme. The JPP is succeeded by Keleketla!, a collective of young artists who currently run a library and cultural programme at the Drill Hall. Kreutzfeldt participated in artists residencies, projects and exhibitions in South Africa, DRC, Spain and Switzerland. Her last solo show was held at the Joao Ferreira Gallery in 2007. IN 2010 she participated in ‘Rencontres PICHA – Biennale de Lumumbashi’ (with writers from Lumumbashi), ‘Afropolis’ in collaboration with Bettina Malcomess at the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne, ‘REFLEX/REFLEJO’ at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in collaboration with Marta Fernandez Calvo; The Johannesburg Art Fair (as part of JPP, in collaboration with Scu2 and Anne Historical) and the Temporaere Kunsthalle, Berlin in collaboration with Bettina Malcomess (2009), PROG in Bern, Switzerland (in collaboration with Visthois Mwilambwe, Kura Shomali, Raphael Urweider, Steffi Weissman, Athi Patra Ruga and Anthea Moys in 2007). Her work is represented in a number of private, corporate and public collections.
