Patrick Waterhouse lives and works between Italy, England and South Africa. Mikhael Subotzky lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. For the 2012 Biennial, Subotzky and Waterhouse presented the latest body of work in their Ponte series.
2012 Biennial Year Find out more
The vast, cylindrical Ponte building has dominated the Johannesburg skyline since the 1970s, and this residential block became a key symbol for the social and economic downturn that followed the arrival of social democracy in 1994.
Subotzky and Waterhouse became fascinated by the fictions and myths projected onto the structure, including tales of prostitution rings and frequent suicides that appear to mark the failure of its utopian intentions.
The artists visited every flat on every floor of the building, both occupied and abandoned, and requested to document the apertures of each one – the internal door, the external window, and the television set. These moments have been stitched together, resulting in an internal and external panoramic projection of this iconic structure.
Exhibitions include Out of Focus (Saatchi Gallery, London, U.K., 2012), State of the Art Photography (with Patrick Waterhouse, NRW-Forum, Düsseldorf, Germany, 2012), and Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography (V&A, London, U.K., 2011).
Waterhouse’s exhibitions include Appropriated Landscapes (The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany, 2011). Waterhouse is also a designer, and is currently the Creative Director of Colors magazine.
Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse at Liverpool Biennial 2012
Ponte, 2008-11
Installation
Exhibited at The Cunard Building