/ 7 November 2008

Jo’burg’s main art space

The newest addition to the mounds of rubble and swinging cranes that distinguish the topography of Johannesburg’s pre-2010 eastern CBD is a neatly gridded grove of olive and lemon trees.

This optimistic patch is the first clear sign of revival in a block of vacant warehouses in Main Street, once partly owned by building contractor and former mayor of Johannesburg DF Corlett and now set to become Arts on Main, a new multi-use commercial arts centre.

In biblical and secular legends the olive branch is a symbol of peace and restoration: Noah’s dove fetched a sprig from an olive tree to show him that the earth had not been entirely destroyed by God’s great flood and in Greek mythology the goddess Athena became the namesake of the city of Athens by offering humankind the gift of peace, metaphorised in the olive tree.

Like these gestures of hope, the courtyard of Arts on Main represents the vision of property developer Jonathan Liebmann and his partners in this enterprise, architects Daffonchio and Associates and the Nirox Foundation, to rejuvenate and transform the eastern enclave of the city into an urban hub for the arts.

To be circumspect, Johannesburg has had its fair share of prescribed cultural hubs over the years, all with dubitable success. Newtown was foisted on the public as the local geographic symbol of the “African renaissance” only for many of the lights on the Nelson Mandela Bridge to have been pilfered under the watch of surveillance cameras.

Then, the Wits School of Arts moved into Wits University’s old dental school building on the corner of Jorissen Street and Jan Smuts Avenue, the Trinity Session engaged the Johannesburg Development Agency and so was born the Johannesburg “Cultural Arc” — a vague curve that suggested a connection between the art school, Constitution Hill and the Newtown Cultural Precinct, but that never definitively made it off aerial maps and into real life.

The difficulty in marketing an urban development as a cultural hub is that it becomes one only with the cooperation of the public. Artists, the business infrastructures that support them and regular culture vultures have to endorse the notion that the arbitrary renovations undertaken by a developer constitute a suitable home base for the arts.

This is precisely where Arts on Main might stand out. For months already there has been talk of William Kentridge taking an enormous private studio space at the complex and now that this is confirmed it has drawn an entourage of important local galleries to the location as well. David Krut will open a second print studio and an art bookshop there, while other key names on the Jan Smuts “gallery strip” in Parkwood are eyeing gaping warehouses with vaulted ceilings and cascades of natural light for their project spaces — entry-level galleries meant to bridge the chasm between young artists and established gallery stables.

So much faith has the arts industry shown in Arts on Main that more than half of the 30-odd sectional title spaces have been secured by tenants without the project having yet been publicly launched. The tax incentives that come with setting up shop in an urban development zone are an added coup for the 30 arts enterprises — thanks to this areas such as Woodstock in Cape Town have undergone cosmetic surgery at the hands of art dealers.

Besides gallery showrooms and artists’ studios, the complex will house a few designer retail spaces, a bar, an outdoor cinema and a restaurant that will open out on to the lush courtyard. Also in the pipeline is a weekend organic food market in the vein of Whatiftheworld/Design Studio’s popular Neighbour Goods Market held on Saturdays at the Old Biscuit Mill in Cape Town.

Liebmann is eager that the complex should also attract design, advertising and media companies to facilitate profitable “creative synergies” between arts practitioners across a spectrum of disciplines. “There are so many potential synergies within the creative community, but it’s often difficult to put them all together,” Liebmann says. “Arts on Main is very much about addressing this and facilitating collaboration within the arts.”

For Johannesburg’s cultural enthusiasts Arts on Main might be the godsend that will raise the bar of the city’s cultural life. To the business-minded it will be an inventively sustainable opportunity to snatch a slice of the 2010 pie. Either way, as long as the olive trees grow tall enough for visitors to imagine they might sneak a peak into Kentridge’s studio from one, Arts on Main looks set to make a lasting mark on Johannesburg’s arts scene.