Does the city create us or do we create the city - this is just one of the questions posed in two exhibitions at the Johannesburg Art Gallery featuring Joburg artists.

TWO Joburg born and bred artists are holding exhibitions at the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) that explore the effect of urbanisation on the social landscape of the individual.

Senzo Nhlapo's Void ‘n Volume is the final exhibition in a series hosted through the Urban Concerns collaboration. Consisting of three photo montage works, it explores the relationship between people and Joburg's urban environment.

From Senzo Nhlapo's Void 'n Volume exhibition

Taken from the point of view that Johannesburg is a point of intersection of many cultures, Nhlapo asks whether we, as citizens, are constructing the city or whether the city is constructing us.

"Do we make the sound which the city moves to, or do the sounds of the city dictate our movements?" Nhlapo asks.

This intricate relationship is illustrated through Nhlapo's technique of combining different photographs and weaving these together to create a new reality. Look at your subject in a different way, he urges, and in so doing transform the city itself.

"His Void ‘n Volume exhibition asks us to examine and question the authenticity of what we see, and contemplate our own individual perceptions of the environment we live in," says JAG curator, Michelle Harris.

Nhlapo has already held some 20 exhibitions. In 2005, he was one of a select group of renowned and amateur artists who took part in the Cow Parade. His colourful cow design, featuring the South African flag, was inspired by the history and value of aesthetics and democracy in South Africa. The cow depicts three portraits that showcase different race groups as a symbol of the rainbow nation. It was bought by Nedbank and stands in front of the head office canteen, Gham Gourmet, in Rivionia.

Urban Concerns is a project that addresses questions around the built environment and the complexities of community dynamics in public space. It is a collaborative project between Bildmuseet, in Umeå, Sweden, and the JAG.

Void ‘n Volume runs until 9 August.

Lives Torn
Kay Hassan's exhibition deals with a number of issues. Simply titled Urbanation, the artist, who was born in Alexandra, explores the relationship between the urban and the rural; surviving urban life with its xenophobia, prostitution and homelessness; commercialisation; and the relationship between time and change, among other topics.

He is a master in various media, using photography, video and real-life exhibits across 12 installations of this mid-career exhibition. It is especially his video of Bra Tom, an original Joburg character, and a Zionist baptism, or purification, ceremony that are striking in their simplistic, yet artistic elegance.

Another masterpiece is a massive work of negatives running across three walls of one of the JAG exhibition halls, poignantly illustrating the life of the common worker. All that remains after death is the person's leather gloves and a Polaroid negative.

Hassan prefers to leave his work untitled, allowing viewers to make their own conclusions. But he comments thus on contemporary living: "Our lives have always been torn and put together and torn - people have always been pushed around. You see it in the streets, in the kids begging, those eyes, the way they look at you."

The artist is the first winner of the prestigious DaimlerChrysler prize for contemporary art. He lives and works in Johannesburg.

Urbanation runs until 30 September.

The Johannesburg Art Gallery is on King George Street in Johannesburg, adjoining Joubert Park. It is open from Tuesdays to Sundays, from 10am to 5pm.

Related stories:

• Artists focus on built environment
• Hassan explores urban life