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A group of black and white cows is contentedly filling Transport Square, another public artwork beautifying Jozi's urban spaces.
THE cows have come to town, and are sitting contentedly on the eastern edge of a square in the CBD, in lovely black and white mosaic.
Artist Andrew Lindsay, together with a team of talented artists, has brought his energy to bear again in the CBD with this latest creation, on the corner of Van Beek and Error streets, known as Transport Square. It consists of seven, bigger-than-life-size cows, staring with curiosity at passers-by. And, says Lindsay, they have had those passers-by stopping to enjoy them.
"A passer-by said to me the other day: ‘This makes us proud of our country.'"
Lindsay was also delighted to see a group of children sitting along the back of one of the cows, obviously enjoying it. "They were all sitting, lounging around, as if saying ‘This is our space,'" he says.
The cows were designed by an artist from Bizana in the Eastern Cape, Andile Mswangelwa. They consist of steel frames covered in concrete, and then tiled in rounded black and white mosaic shapes.
"I love to stand and watch people's responses - they have a deep respect for them, as if they somehow belong there. I love the concept of cows in the middle of the city that people can interact with."
Lindsay says he loves the urban/rural link in the city and explains that the locals have already renamed the taxi rank that they sit alongside, "The place of the cows".
Metal flowers on the northern wall of the Metro Mall
The cows and the taxi rank are around the corner from the future Ellis Park Bus Rapid Transit station. The artworks are part of the ongoing upgrade of the precinct around Jewel City, on the eastern edge of the city.
Other works
As always, Lindsay has involved informal, local artists. In June his team finished several other works on the western side of town. At the Metro Mall a northerly blue wall is covered in multi-coloured flowers, made of recycled metal and other materials, completed in March.
Against a bank of the M2 in Carr Street, a group of students from the University of the Witwatersrand designed and completed a scattered, colourful group of concrete dustbin lids, as part of the City's "It's my city, let's keep it clean" campaign.
At the other end of Carr Street, alongside Brickfields, is a colourful mural with greetings in various African languages.
Other murals in the campaign include a long wall of smiling faces, cut off at their shoulders, at the eastern end of Market Street.
Lindsay has made use of metal workers, recycling artists, wireworkers, painters and a signwriter, and some R70 000 has been spent by the City on this beautification.
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