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Haroon Gunn-Salie / In the Viewing Room / 2014

22 February - 29 March 2014

In our first Viewing Room show of the year, Goodman Gallery Johannesburg presents work from three different yet interlinked series by Haroon Gunn-Salie – Place of Gold, Witness and Zonnebloem Renamed – exploring the fractured urban landscapes of Johannesburg and Cape Town. All three projects confront this legacy of inner-city fragmentation, while simultaneously pointing out the artifice or socio-political conflict often inherent in urban redevelopment. Gunn-Salie recalls what urbanist AbdouMaliq Simone terms “the right to the city”, which suggests “the divergent composition of the city itself, its movements towards decline and ascendancy, its varied juxtaposition of planning and improvisation, of business and residence, of security and insecurity.”

A series that confronts both the history and current development of Johannesburg as a major metropolis, Place of Gold was initiated by Gunn-Salie as part of a residency in the Maboneng Precinct in the inner city. “Fencing and hardedge permanent measures to hem oneself in and to keep others out, is very much an aesthetic that South Africans are used to,” explains Gunn-Salie in an interview conducted with Simon Castets and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Yet in this new development, Gunn-Salie points out a veneer of gloss and untroubled sense of safety. “In the Maboneng Precinct there are no palisade fences, no burglar bars… Place of Gold is really pointing at the irony of the promise of a better life, where the moment in the gentrified city becomes very similar to the moment in the historical city… Johannesburg was built on migrant labour and on the promise that moving from rural South Africa to urban Johannesburg brought with it prosperity and riches. This was not the case, as more than 90% of the people that came to Johannesburg ended up living in dormitory suburbs in appalling conditions with absolutely no labour rights.” Gunn-Salie ties this chronicle of migration into the contemporary gentrification of the area, where minutes away persists the deep legacy of abject poverty, with the shadow of the city’s mine dumps hovering in the distance.

Shifting from relocation to dislocation, two projects based in Cape Town – Witness and Zonnebloem Renamed – both focus on one of the most iconic sites of forced removal in South Africa: District Six. Known for its closely-knit, multi-cultural community, District Six was demolished by apartheid decree when it was declared ‘whites only’ under the Group Areas Act in 1968. Residents were dumped in drab, racially divided dormitory townships on the sandy wastes of the Cape Flats, which rapidly degenerated into gang, alcohol and drug-infested dust bowls of poverty. Gunn-Salie explores the past and future of this site in central Cape Town. Since it was bulldozed, the District has remained empty for the most part and has the potential to become a living memorial with the process of restitution. Yet Cape Town based urban practitioners Lucien le Grange and Nisa Mammon refer to threats to restitution, such as absence of political will and looming interests of speculative development. Le Grange and Mammon explore the idea of sustainability as a trap, contesting the notion that there are basic common interests within sustainability that will resolve issues such as poverty, exploitation, congestion, ugliness and homelessness. Rather, urban development is conflict-laden, which is highly evident in the case of District Six – an area precious both in real estate and historical terms.

Artworks

Dibond mounted pigment inks on semi-matte 250gm paper
36.6 x 55cm
Unavailable
Single channel film
Unavailable
Cast concrete and paint
Unavailable
Dibond cotton rag print
39.4 x 180cm
Unavailable
Dibond cotton rag print
36.6cm x 55cm
Unavailable
Dibond cotton rag print
36.6cm x 55cm
Unavailable
Frame: 61.5 x 71.5 x 3.5 cm
Unavailable
Cotton rag print
42 x 59 cm
Unavailable
Cotton rag print
42 x 59 cm
Unavailable
Diasec lightjet print
53 x 80 cm
Unavailable
Dibond cotton rag print
36.6cm x 55cm
Unavailable