ART
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Race for an artful Namibia
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n Europe, every new public building project, irrespective of whether it is a school, administrative building or hospital or any other purpose, is required to include in its budget a minimum 3% of the total building cost for a public artwork. Not only does it enhance the public space, tell a story about the building and become a tourist attraction, it also supports the struggling artist profession in general. In Namibia this noble legislation is sorely missing, resulting in our public spaces being generally experienced as uninspiring and dead. Following a recent initiative by the National Art Gallery of Namibia called ‘what’s your story’ artists were called upon to produce artworks in reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic. Amongst others, the artists were also encouraged to produce public artworks on public spaces. For this purpose the City of Windhoek generously offered to make the open areas around the new and old municipal building available. The contribution from WHUDA MARBLE ART NAMIBIA was an artwork carved in Karibib marble stone. The challenge that they set themselves was that three artists (Kambezunda Ngavee, Henry Coetzee and Winfried Holze) would work independently on a single marble stone on consecutive days (i.e. one day the one works, the next day the other one and the third day the third artist
Construction & Mining Magazine, Vol 5 | Edition No 2
