One Dear Johannes and I had Toasted Bacon & Egg Samies at the Spar at Highpoint in Hillbrow a few weeks ago. It was not Fontana like the old days when we used to go there after dancing until 3am in the morning and dance some more like mad young people. This was serious. We were on a reccie to find a big wall to install an exhibition by Jodi Bieber, as part of a project called SHOE SHOP which is happening in May. You will hear more about SHOE SHOP from the Goethe Institute and the exhibition curator who is also a brilliant and friendly artist by the name of Dr Marie-Hélène Gutberlet and about which we are excited so we will blog about it some more too.
We found four great possible sites so we arranged to go show Jodi on Friday last week,
On his way to us so we could travel together, Johannes saw this yellow chair on the corner of Bezuidenhout & Appollonia Streets in our Most Favoured Suburb of Troyeville. Then we fetched Jodi who had beautiful boots on which you can't see here but you can imagine.
As we came around the corner from Corlett Drive into Oxford Road near Illovo we saw this charming dustbin.
If you want to know how AAW!s makhulu-baas feels about dustbins go look at her blog on www.lesfolies.posterous.com and click on the #lesbin tag. This particular installation has tendencies though. We may leave it as is. We may not.
First we saw the sick-green facebrick wall outside the furniture shop in Kotze Street. But we were worried about the facebrick and the space between the busy street traders and the show. Then we saw the a site in a lane with a gate and a fence which is fabulous for an invited exhibiition but otherwise noone goes there. Then we went down and saw the one at the Hillbrow Tower base which is to die for and it was between that and this bright blue wall outside Cambridge Fair price on Pretorius Street. Jodi chose it. You can see her deciding here.
Once the decision was made, she told us exactly how she would like it to be. We had some careful discussion.
You can see the top of the aforementioned boots here. They were nearly as intense and luminous as Ms Bieber.
All photographs by (c) Johannes Dreyer