JOHANNESBURG – When artist Robin Rhode needed a canvas for his latest work, he found it at an abandoned sports ground in his dysfunctional hometown of Johannesburg.

Beneath the waist-high grass, broken bottles and an occasional bullet casing, he uncovered a decades-old miniature golf course, indoor soccer fields and a tennis training wall. And that’s where he started drawing.

The 48-year-old grew up not far from the sports ground, but 20 years ago, he moved to Berlin as his career took off internationally. He paints on walls, sets fire to pianos, and draws everyday objects like keys and lightbulbs in chalk and charcoal.
“My work is deeply-rooted in Johannesburg, and I think one of the reasons is that the city functions as a kind of rough, decayed canvas in many ways, that’s almost calling for a new narrative to be drawn or painted” onto it, he told AFP.

Often, Rhode works in outdoor spaces where much of his work will wash away — the images preserved in often playful photographs, where he or his collaborators pose with the drawings.
His work has been bought by heavyweight institutions like the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has also collaborated with U2, and won the 2018 Zurich Art Prize. Although he could work anywhere, Johannesburg keeps calling him back.
“Coming back from Berlin, and travelling around the city, and seeing the collapse of these structures, it’s had a really profound effect on me,” he said.
“It’s motivated me to come back to South Africa, and to revitalise these structures.”

Just 15 years ago, the Cecil Payne Stadium had undergone a massive upgrade to become a training ground when South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup.
Now abandoned by the city, the fencing is slowly being stolen for sale as scrap. Two indoor soccer fields are a weedbed. A private sports club is keeping the main fields functioning, even as squatters build encampments in a nearby wetland at the foot of a mountainous mine dump.
Johannesburg has had 10 mayors in eight years, some serving just weeks, making local government resemble a game of musical chairs.
Amid the political chaos, a regional commuter train service collapsed, street lights went dark and routine maintenance at places like the stadium simply stopped.
For Rhode, the decay provided inspiration for a collection called Joburg Hymn.  – Nampa/AFP