An all-embracing plan is being drawn up to encourage new forms of creative expression, and to care and maintain the current artworks found in Joburg's public spaces.

Edoardo Villa's The Reclining Figure in the Pieter Roos Park

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HE City is currently drawing up a Public Art Policy to promote the use and enjoyment of public spaces, and address the race-based artistic choices of the past.

The policy aims to encourage new forms of creative expression, create opportunities for artists, and provide for the ongoing maintenance of public art.

It provides the rationale for the City's art in public places programme, according to Eric Itzkin, deputy director: immovable heritage in the City's department of arts, culture and heritage services.

Public art, according to Itzkin, takes many forms and is found in a number of different locations. It includes murals, paintings, mosaics, sculptures, public monuments and memorials and landscaped gardens or "people's parks".

Itzikin says the history of public art in South Africa and more specifically Johannesburg can be described in terms of four broad areas:

• monuments commissioned by the apartheid government;
• public art commissioned by private developers;
• creative activities of communities; and
• work that has taken place post 1994, including community and private enterprise based projects.

"There are monuments which were commissioned by the apartheid government and most of these were installed in Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein because these areas were all seats of national government. The city of Johannesburg installed a few monumental sculptures with the role of gold in the city as a major theme."

Creating new spaces and identities
Following the demise of apartheid, the City has faced the challenge of creating new spaces and identities to replace the race-based seclusions of the past.

"Public art has a major role to play as part of this process of reclaiming public space. Seen in the context of post-apartheid urban reconstruction, public art offers opportunities for promoting the use and enjoyment of public space. By changing the ways in which the city spaces are experienced, public art can help forge a new inclusive cultural and creative identity," says Itzkin.

However, there is a need for more carefully planning. "A policy on public art is required in order to manage these resources, to introduce more public art into prominent public places, parks and other facilities, and to support a comprehensive maintenance programme," he says.

Under the policy, a public art action plan that identifies prospective new projects and reports on the status of ongoing projects would be prepared. This plan will identify ongoing projects, prospective projects for the coming year, budgets for prospective city projects and public art projects initiated from outside of Council, including private developments.

A public art approvals committee will review the action plan in order to select new projects for the coming financial year. New art works will be selected through a number of ways. There will be open and invitational competitions where all qualifying artists would be asked to submit proposals for evaluation by an art selection panel.

"Artists would also be chosen directly by the public art approvals committee or selection panel and through direct purchase of existing artwork. Finances to fund these art projects would be drawn from one percent of the construction budget of all major city building projects of R10-million or more," Itzkin says.

The Johannesburg public art fund, an account that is set up to receive funds donated by private benefactors, developers or other sources, would be also be appropriated for the City's art in public places programme.

Public art around the city
Itzkin says there is a "lot of energy and activity" around public art in the city. He says Johannesburg artists are passionate about their work and a lot of public art projects are underway or have been installed.

The Miners' Monument in Braamfontein

"We have to encourage and bring in new art work into the city. There is the bronze statue of MK Gandhi at the Gandhi Square in central Johannesburg, the steel sculpture "Open Arms" outside Uncle Tom's Community Hall in Orlando West and the metal sculpture of Lillian Ngoyi's sewing machine in Mzimhlophe, just to name a few."

A joint project between the City's department of arts, culture and heritage and the Sunday Times saw the development of 10 public artworks on heritage themes. The flagship of this project was the installation of Brenda Fassie's statue in Newtown, according to Itzkin.

Most recently, a series of nine large-scale steel tree sculptures were installed in Juta Street, Braamfontein in July this year.

Some of the City's public art works have been vandalised and many have been neglected, says Itzkin. In 2005, the department began the development of a database of all public art in the city to guide a systematic programme of repairs and maintenance. So far, 40 artworks have been recorded and documented.

"Recent years have seen an extension of maintenance and restoration work. Remedial work has been carried out on the Credo Mutwa Cultural Village in Jabavu, Soweto, and on monuments in various parts of the city."

By May 2006, repairs to the central core of the Credo Mutwa Village had been completed and the rest of the cultural complex would be restored by 2008.

Since 2005, the department of arts, culture and heritage services has carried out restoration work on four historic monuments including the Ferreira Deep Monument, the Indian War Memorial, the Cottesloe Monument and the Randjeslaagte Beacon.

In addition, the Miners' Monument in Braamfontein was partially restored by the Johannesburg Development Agency and there are plans in place to replace the water feature that was part of the original artist's handiwork. The metal sculpture, The Reclining Figure by Edoardo Villa, at the Pieter Roos Park in Parktown has also received a new coat and base.

"Public art is fast developing in the city. Through this art, the City projects its collective identity and vision, while individuals and community groups in neighbourhoods are also empowered to also express their unique identities," says Itzkin.