Cape Town’s streets and parks are lined with public art installations, many of which are reminders of South Africa’s troubled past. Some have been embraced by citizens, others have provoked heated reactions from Capetonians who don’t always see eye-to-eye with artists.
Big Raybans, big controversy
The most polarizing of the works is that of Michael Allion. Realization of freedomA giant metal and plastic pair of Ray Bans, sponsored by the eyewear company and said by the artist to be inspired by Nelson Mandela, who was once photographed wearing a pair of sunglasses.
When work on the Sea Point Promenade, overlooking Robben Island, was unveiled in November 2014, there were rumblings of protest. The local press dismissed it as ‘corporate vandalism’ rather than art, by the end of the month the statue had been vandalized by the Guerrilla Grafto group. Tocolos stencil, are notorious for their ‘barriers’ of Cape Town’s colonial and apartheid-era sculptures. The sculpture was quickly cleaned up and the signboard detailing its meaning removed, leaving the majority of people who pose for photos or climb atop the giant frames none the wiser for the controversy. .
of the dead Africa
Eleon is not alone among Capetonian artists who have upset the establishment and/or the public. Africa by the Brett Murray Was a controversial winner of a public sculpture competition in 1998. It took a year for lawyers to fight some city councilors against a 3-meter-tall bronze fetish figure of Pale Bart Simpson attached to the head. Murray said he was portraying Africa as a dumping ground for Western culture. 21 years later it remains on the St. George Mall, an artistic curiosity that few locals give a second glance.
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A monument to slavery
Cape Town has no shortage of painful history when it comes to inspiring works of public art. The church is in the square A monument to slavery – 11 low, black granite blocks inscribed with the names of slaves or words related to slavery, resistance and rebellion.
Conversely, a small circular plaque in the traffic island on Aspen St. marks the location of the original slave tree, which was cut down, under which slaves were sold until emancipation in 1834.
Rock Girl Bench
While on Signal Hill, look for one of the colorful mosaic benches it creates. Rock Girl. This inspiring project was started by human rights lawyer Michelle India Baird in 2010 when she was volunteering at the crime-ridden Red River School in the Cape Flats suburb of Manenburg. There was an urgent need to create safe places for young girls and boys to sit and not be harassed by bullies.
Since then a number of prominent Capetonian artists and designers have joined in creating the bench, of which there are currently 60. Most of those in central Cape Town are twinned with sister benches in townships, such as Gogolithu, where there is one in Amy Behl. Monument
There is a bench at Croto Place in the City Bowl next to St. George Mall commemorating the 17th-century Kho-San woman Crotoa von Meerhoff who served as an interpreter for Jan von Riebeeck. She married a Dutch settler, but ended her life when she was imprisoned on Robben Island at the age of just 32.
Prestwich Memorial Garden has three benches: Timeout by artist Paul du Toit, in the form of a symbolic rock girl; An oversized wooden bench by Mark Thomas (who also designed the Boomslang at Kristenbosch Botanical Gardens) and a metal and wooden bench by Laurie van Heerden inside Truth Coffee.
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Open house
Kimberley-born artist Jacques Coetzer was the winner of a R1 million competition sponsored by the Western Cape Government in 2014 for a permanent artwork to sit on a plinth on the corner of Dorp and Long Streets. The brief was that while celebrating 20 years of democracy for South Africa, the work should reflect Cape Town’s history, diversity and aspirations for the future.
Coetzer’s Open House takes the form of the facade of a 10.5m tall bright red house with staircases and balconies on three levels. It is envisioned as a place where people can go to speak, sing, cry or simply wave at passers-by. Coetzer drew inspiration from corrugated metal structures, RDP houses and Long Street itself.
Sea Point Promenade
Perceiving Freedom isn’t the only temporary installation with Seapoint Prom. Pause at the powerful, thought-provoking. Rhinoceros By Andre Carl van der Merwe. When you look at the cross-hair section of this installation, the rest of it looks like a target: a critically endangered rhinoceros.
A seawall is a metal sculpture. Come over the sea By Aaron Gunn Sully, a piece inspired by the lyrics of the Cape Minstrels’ song ‘Dark Come Die Alabama’, CSS AlibabaA visit to Cape Town in 1863.
A less successful visit to Table Bay by SS South African Seafarer In 1966 there is inspiration for Kevin Brand’s constant. Five white horses, at the three-anchor bay end of the promenade. When the ship ran aground some of his belongings, including white plastic horses, washed up on a nearby beach. Each horse has a vuvuzela horn in its mouth: speak into one horse and the sound comes out of the mouth of another.
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Originally written by Simon Richmond and published in 2015, this article was updated in 2019 by Lucy Corn.