Human intersection weaves through Maboneng

PETER FELDMAN

Lieberman, a renowned artist with an impressive body of work, told Jewish Report that her new public sculpture has been in the making since the idea was born six years ago. It has recently been installed in an area known as “Walking Street” and was where the old canal used to be.

Propertuity, the developers of the area, and the City of Johannesburg, partnered to make this thoroughfare a sculpture park.

Lieberman and Jonathan Liebmann, the core developer of the area, wanted to establish a “commentary of the community” by using sculptures of the pioneers and visionaries of Arts on Main, as well as some of the earliest community members.

Liebmann and William Kentridge took the initial step in 2008 to develop this area into an arts community, which she described as one that is “alive, growing and typical of what a community should be.

“It should not be separate people living in a city, but rather people who know each other, and work and socialise together.”

The work, she says, communicates this by sewing together the people and their environment into the architecture.

Her work involves the making of lace circles from cable that are designed to symbolise the power of events, or the impact and influence people have on each other and their surrounds. The lace, the figures and the buildings, are all drawn together by cable that stretches across the divide, weaving in and out of the people.

Said Lieberman: “Even before ‘Human Intersection’ was completely installed, the realisation that the magic of the precinct is not only balanced on the people who got there first, but rather that it is joined to what is happening there all the time and every day.”

Lieberman began creating lace circles in 2006, using the thread in a specific way to express a concept. After a trip to Sydney in 2011, where she met Dutch designers, Joep and Joroen Verhoeven, at a lace symposium, she explored larger pieces of lace using cable (covered wire rope).

The recently unveiled work encompasses more figures of people who are relevant and active in the area.

The initial sculptures included creations by William Kentridge, Jonathan Liebmann, Mikhael Subotzky, David Krut, Given Giyani, Shruthi Nair and Lieberman herself.

The second phase was expanded to include the works of such artists as Deone Billings, principal of Spark School, Jarlyne Joel, founder of the Chef School, Bheki Dube, founder and owner of Curiocity, Kasa from the Ethiopian restaurant Little Addis, and Ziggy from Patapata and others.

Lieberman said that although some of the people in the work are pertinent to the success of the area, William Kentridge has played a pivotal role in starting the Maboneng community and continues to have a strong pull of both the national and international art world into the area. Jonathan Liebmann, whom she calls the “driver”, is also a significant figure in the development.