6 Friday. July 23.2010

Homes with

A new book and exhibition in Harlem goes

deep inside a differ~ntkind of house

DAILY NEWS NYDailyNews.com

BY JASON SHEFTELLREAL ESTATE CORRESPONDENT

J: The moment you enter The Studio

>- Museum in Harlem's main gal1eryon 125th St. to see the new exhibi­tion by South African photographerZwelethu Mthethwa, large images

of people in colorful but tiny kitchens,bedrooms and living rooms stare back atyou. More than life-size, the subjects don'tsmile, but look content and full of life. Thelack of furnishings and objects prove thesepeople have ne,,'! to nothing.

It's impossible to look away. There islittle furniture - maybe a bed, table andcabinet. Objects include a wall clock, potsand pans, a wooden chair and a foldingtray. As a viewer, you are drawn into therooms, sitting right beside the subjects.

While it's impossible to tell from thephotos, these people live in self-built tinand wood shacks, in temporary neighbor­hoods that can be bulldozed by police orburned to the ground by wildfires ignitedby a fallen candle or kerosene lamp. Theyuse extension cords to rent their electric­ity from nearby houses or siphon it fromstreetlights. Nothing in their life exceptthe color that surrounds them seems per­manent.

These are the homes of migrant work­ers in Johannesburg. After apartheid end­ed in 1992, allowing village people to le­gally move to cities, these country peopleflocked'to urban areas to find work, bring­ing nothing with them but the clothes ontheir backs and a few precious objects.

Mthethwa, a well-known South Afri­can artist who did portraits of sugarcane

workers on South African farms, complet­ed the portraits from 1995 to 2005, callingthe series "Interiors."

1\vo of his other projects are on displayat the museum show, which is titled "In­ner Views": "Empty Beds," in which hephotographed the beds of male laborers inbarracks, and "Common Ground," featur­ing homes from the Ninth Ward in post­Katrina New Orleans and a fire-ravagedneighborhood in Cape Town. A new bookpublished by Aperture includes work fromthe exhibit, demonstrating the power thathomes can have on our souls.

"In South Africa, land ownershipequals power," says Mthethwa, regard­ing the obsession with real estate in hischanging nation. "Home for these peopleis fluid. People come and go over every sixmonths. Their homes can be gone in a day.

I was intrigued by the psychology or what

they go through to make the hO~S so

comfortable and beautiful. They a veryhappy with there living conditions Theirhouses are a source of great pride."

In "Interiors," newspapers and aga­

zine advertisements are plastered I 0 thewalls in many of the makeshift ~omes.They depict lives full of money, love, hap­piness and consumption. Some are *epeti­live ads for fruits or vegetables. Othersshow supermodeIs in exotic setting.. Up­

scale furnishing ads dominate on!wall.

Another has the phrase "Successf I Liv­ing" written on it.

"These are what these people dr am of

becoming," says Mthethwa, in Nevf Yorkfor the e:dubit that opened last weef- "It's

!row ilioy tt. <h_clw, ""'" 1~'"to be heroes and supermodels."

DAlLY NEWSNYDailyNews.com

According to Mthethwa, industriousresidents find overprinted newspapersoutside printing plants to sell to theirneighbors. Instant micro-economies formwithin the boundaries of these transientneighborhoods on the fringes of the city,where workers find jobs as maids and se­curity guards.

Economic niches are created, suchas in gathering and reselling bricks to awealthier class who can afford more du­rable homes. The more colorful newsprint,featuring affluent scenes, fetches higherprices. A South African law says if a land­owner does not evict illegal tenants withina certain amount of days, they can remainon the property.

Mthethwa's portraits empower the resi­dents. Politely, he asks them ifhe can taketheir picture and enter their homes. Often,

they tell him to return in an hour so theycan wash clothes or tidy up. Using onlynatural light and no tripod, Mthethwatakes the portraits and immediately makesa printfor his subjects, bringing theirpho­tograph back to the workers as gifts.

,No one pays attention to these

people; he says. "They have solittle self-confidence that thismakes them feel good aboutthemselves."

Looking at the photographs, a brightlycolored room lined in red-printed sheetswith floors covered in green squares couldbe a back bedroom in a Connecticut farm­house. or a chic boutique hotel in the EastVillage. Most of the rooms are more at­tractive than a typical studio apartment,showing scale and balance in color usage

and size of furnishings. The homes arealso immaculate, much cleaner than ParkAve. apartments I have seen.

"People assume poverty means lack oftaste," says Naomi Beckwith, an associatecurator at The Studio Museum in Harlemwho oversaw the exhibit. "Every day thesepeople make esthetic decisions regardinghow to live. They consistently reinventtheir lives and homes. There is somethingvery noble in that."

Inspiration does come from the show,which every interior designer or residentof a small New York apartment shouldsee. Visitors leave the exhibit wanting tochange something in their own life, tolive up to the homes and hopes of thesemarginalized people born with so muchless. There is nothing sad about the photo­graphs or the people in them. Their sense

Children growup fast livingamong Westernmagazinecovers (top);from left: workfrom ~CommonGround," aseries on bricksellers, and"Empty BedsH

of self is as vibrant as the colors they use. Ifanything, they draw strength from home.Mthethwa, too, felt uplifted during the 10years he took these portraits.

"They opened their hearts and homesto me," he says. "Crime is a minimum inthese neighborhoods. They collect waterfrom the same watering hole. They relyon each other. At the end of every day, Ifelt very positive. It amazes me what thesepeople did with their homes."

"Inner Views" runs through Oct. 24 atThe Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 W.125th St. "Zwelethu Mthethwa," a bookfrom Aperture, is on sale for 855 at themuseum and aperture.com. The workscan be purchased for $22,000 to $25,000from the lack Shainman Gallery, locatedin Chelsea at 513 W. 20th St.

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