Stephen Hobbs

M23 70 (2003) is Stephen Hobbs’ fifth solo exhibition and the first since he co-opted the Levi’s store in Sandton for CMMSSNR (2001). Hobbs’ work is characterized by an enthusiasm for the ways in which the urban environment serves as a backdrop for the ‘behaviour’ of modern materials: light, space, concrete, glass, grids, commuters, traders and pedestrians.  

 M23 70 (2003) is informed by some nine years’ worth of inquiry into the phenomenologies of urban spaces, both here and abroad. Hobbs presents a selection of serial photographic works and collage produced over the past 5 years, alongside numerous local and international projects, as yet not exhibited as a coherent body of photographic work. With selected titles like Auto Camouflage, Bernd Surfaces and Your Trains Run On Time But Does The Blood Flow Through Your Veins?, Hobbs’ interest in the interstitial spaces, visual textures and signifiers of city-space and the behaviours of those who use and transform this environment is revealed as a spontaneous documentation process that, as far as investigations into the city go, it’s about being in the right place at the right time.

As artist Rodney Place has commented: “ Long obsessed with Johannesburg’s inner city and its web of significations – a web that complicates Modernism’s idealized grid and vertical ambitions – Hobbs’s images here enter a field of self – referential illusion. The wavering reflections of buildings within buildings suggests not only mirage but, aesthetically, camouflage: the possibility for concealment and deception, the unreliability of signs. “ (Extract from Retreks - a metro gallery, by Rodney Place. World Wide Video Festival Catalogue 2001,pg 49)

 The politics of Hobbs’ work are explicit. He demands an inquisitive, thoughtful audience for a sound body of work, which insists on a certain fluency in interpreting city planning / architectural and contemporary art vocabulary. While investing heavily in the psycho-socio-economic dramas of inner-city “histories”, his work is predominantly about the analysis of broader patterned behaviours manifest by the city’s inhabitants.

Hobbs’ work on Johannesburg is challenging to the imagination of the global consumer and traveller as well as local viewers, whose “codes have been set by a collective social psyche of xenophobia, racism and fear”, as Hobbs himself points out. With the current focus on Johannesburg’s regeneration, Hobbs’ work offers an alternative image landscape for a transforming city.

The opening night will feature a series of digital projections, including Mirage City and Lo Res Reflections.

The website for this exhibition (hosted by The Trinity Session) will launch on Friday September 26.

www.onair.co.za/sh

The artist would like to acknowledge the generous sponsorship of Beith Digital towards the production costs of this exhibition.