'NOT A LINE (a shadow line)'
Paolo Baraldi at SMAC ART GALLERY CAPE TOWNThe second edition of the Italo-South African artist’s residency exchange programme facilitated by the Centro Luigi Di Sarro and SMAC Gallery is marked by the arrival of Italian artist Paolo Baraldi in Cape Town in early September.
'NOT A LINE (a shadow line)', follows Baraldi's month long stay in the city where he worked on an urban art intervention project. Focussing on commuters using the new MyCiti bus services, the title; NOT A LINE (a shadow line), in its literal sense, is particularly relevant as the map or network of bus routes is far from linear.
With MyCity buses running concurrently through the well-known tourist spots and the various suburbs of the city, each bus stop represents a new discovery and encounter for the artist. He aims to reproduce the places, people, situations and images he experiences in shadow form, creating a body of work that is both a social survey and study in urban ethnography. Baraldi sees the movement of people as a form of human exchange.
The artist states:
'Drawing, photography and engraving, are steps in a process of memorization: the faces, the lives, the lights and shadows of people who might meet in my experience will be stored and played back in memory.
This project fits into the body of work which I have been developing around public spaces over the last few years, in Bilbao (Spain), Tampere (Finland), Rome and Bergamo (Italy). Recurring themes and devices in my work are issues surrounding equality, as well as highlighting the acquiescence and complicity of the individual to change appearance within the public context, reflecting a specific visual and cultural aspect, which is provoked and encouraged through artistic intervention. The extent and nature of these interventions are relaxed or intensified, depending on the context.'
The timing of the project coincides with various initiatives surrounding the City of Cape Town as World Design Capital for 2014. The conceptual basis of the project aligns itself with the idea that artistic intervention and urban intervention are interrelated and connected as tools in contemporary social planning.
Baraldi’s project also includes a workshop with the photography and graphics students from the Ruth Prowse School of Art in Woodstock.
02 October - 18 October
