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THE trinity session: Stephen Hobbs and Marcus will be exhibiting 10 years of art at the Maboneng Precinct from March 16.

THERESA TAYLOR

The artwork looks like the offspring of a circus tent and a shack. It stands on a city rooftop, high above the people and visible from the highway: this lucky misfit has inherited one heck of a view.

Swiss artist Kerim Seiler regards the coloured slats of the two-storey dwelling he has built on top of the Main Change building – one of the latest projects of inner city development company Propertuity. The piece is called Relay and the idea behind it is to bring specialists from Europe to stay in this strange, wooden building. “If you don’t have a plan, you are the right man,” says the bespectacled artist of the type of people he hopes to attract.

Mist swirls around Ponte Tower as Seiler explains: it’s meant to be a detour. This is not a place of function. If you want a place of function, book a hotel. But the shower and toilet will be functional and there is electricity.

How do these plan-free, European experts pay for their stay?

“You don’t have to come and produce,” says Seiler, who was sponsored by the Swiss Arts Council. “It’s more advanced than that, it’s not tit for tat. The people who will be coming here have achieved so much already it’s an honour that they come. From a Eurocentric point of view, Johannesburg is not a destination. It’s not Berlin or Paris, but it has great energy and big potential.”

HIGH art: Swiss artist Kerim Seiler in his art installation called Relay in the Maboneng Precinct on Joburgs east side. Pictures: Chris Collingridge

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Seiler met Jonathan Liebmann, founder of Propertuity, when he bought one of his sculptures to Joburg. “(His support of Relay) speaks for the way he works as an entrepreneur. He is up for unorthodox ideas.”

The Maboneng Precinct – an area in the east of the Joburg CBD that encompasses Arts on Main and the 12 Decades Hotel, among other buildings – is Liebmann’s baby, and he keeps a close eye on it.

His latest spurt of unorthodox ideas includes a “plug in” office where companies and individuals can share a large work space with all the amenities and the Museum of Art and Design (Moad), an exhibition space for projects that are not only good to look at, but could also potentially be part of African problem solving.

Inside the greasy shell of what was the Gearbox factory, artists Marcus Neustetter and Stephen Hobbs are surveying the space which will be Moad. The pair, who form the 10-year-old art collaboration The Trinity Session, will be exhibiting there in March, before full renovations to the space.

They are wearing the same shoes. Sleek black takkies with three white stripes on the side of each. Hobbs has a black T-shirt, Neustetter wears dark grey. Jeans, very short hair and backpacks on backs.

But 10 years of working together have produced more than a similar dress sense. The pair frequently exhibit across the world, in a variety of mediums, collaborating with many artists. Their work is about more than putting paintbrush to canvas as they use creativity as a commodity to merge art and business. Their endeavours range from working on public art in Joburg to herding goats from Alexandra to Sandton as part of an enquiry into the xenophobic attacks there.

Common threads in their work led to Neustetter and Hobbs collaborating all those years ago. “We get on each other’s nerves, but we don’t fight,” says Neustetter. “You are painting a negative picture,” interjects Hobbs.

They have total trust in each other, each inspiring the other. Sometimes when they go on overseas jobs, they get booked a double room. “Welcome Mr and Mrs Neustetter.” But their collaborative intertwinedness is obvious. “You have to be solid as a team, a couple, a brotherhood,” says Neustetter.

Maboneng means “place of light” in Sotho, so their exhibition will be composed of large-scale image projections inside the Moad space. They will also light up the façade of the building with temporary patterns. If all goes according to plan, the exhibition will light a beacon in the area, to lead art lovers from all parts of the city to the place of light.

The Trinity Session’s exhibition, 10YRS ONAIR, opens on March 16.