Happy Snaps: Alex in wonderland

Photographer Michael Meyersfeld has worked for many years in an industrial park, near Kramerville, Johannesburg. His office space is white-walled and sparsely decorated. His assistant Benson Makamo offers us coffee.

For years, Meyersfeld worked as a successful commercial photographer, but recently he has been making fine art.

His latest series of photographs is Dark City Dreams, which depicts Alexandra - a township usually associated with crime and squalor - as a joyous place.

Meyersfeld said: "There is a fun side to the township. I've seen people laughing. There are kids in the streets."

There are 12 photos in the series, including one of a gogo jumping on a soccer field. Another depicts a young black boy sitting on a church bench next to an older white woman. A woman security guard, with a plunging neckline, holds a guard dog.

Photography as social commentary has a long history in South Africa. David Goldblatt has been documenting lives for 60 years. Documentary photography is what most of us know and understand when we view photography, whether as fine art or news.

But what Meyersfeld does is not documentary.

He said: "I stage all my photography. I wanted to make a statement that Alex is fun. You might find the moment, but the essence of what you want will be spoiled by other factors."

Meyersfeld controls his set like a film director, and leaves nothing to chance. He spends hours looking for locations and models, training the models, and arranging the props and lighting.

"I don't care how I get my shot. I cheat, I lie."

"For this photograph [see above]," Meyers-feld said, "I wanted a sassy little tsotsi. I couldn't find her. I searched and searched."

After driving for hours through Alexandra, he eventually spotted her.

"Her little bum was going from left to right. I asked Benson to stop the car.

"I climbed out and called her. She started to run," he says.

She eventually stopped, and agreed to model for him.

"But she was very difficult to work with. She was terribly, terribly nervous. She is not at all what she looks like. She is reserved," Meyers-feld said.

Though Meyersfeld says he is not a documentary photographer, he has set out to make a social comment about joy in Alexandra by staging and recreating these scenes. Can we believe him?

He does not believe it is particularly important how you make your statement.

"Whether it's with oil paints and a paint brush, or with pencil and a paper, or with a camera. It's a medium. My photographs are mini-happenings, like mini-films."

• "Dark City Dreams", with poetry by Wally Mongane Serote, opens tomorrow night at Afrika Tikkun Phutaditjaba Centre in Alexandra. Transport to the exhibition will be available from the FNB Art Fair at the Sandton Convention Centre from Friday to Sunday

Also On

Art Fair

Since its inception in 2008, the Joburg Art Fair has grown into one of the biggest art events on the continent, featuring work from 33 galleries, six art platforms and a number of special projects, which are a series of curated shows.

The eighth incarnation of the fair will feature art and artists from across the world including Nigeria, Mozambique, France, Spain and the UK.

This year's fair will have a strong Nigerian focus with two galleries from Lagos exhibiting in addition to a special project titled Lagos Photo Festival: Staging Reality, Documenting Fiction.

Some of the other special projects include:

• Dialogues with Masters: Visual Perspectives on Two Decades of Democracy, presented by Grolsch;
• Fabricate: A Handspring Puppet Company Retrospective presented by Rand Merchant Bank;
• Peregrinate: Field Notes on time travel and space presented by the Goethe-Institut;
• Working Title: Create, Curate, Collect: A Portrait in Three Parts presented by Artlogic; and
• Artist Anthea Moys will be enacting a performance art piece titled The Artist is Arm Wrestling inwhich she challenges the public to take turns sitting opposite her in a manner reminiscent of Marina Abramovic.

The Joburg Art Fair is on from Friday to Sunday. For ticket prices and times visit www.fnbjoburgartfair.co.za

Art Week

In the lead-up to the Joburg Art Fair this weekend, galleries across Johannesburg are joining hands to host the city's first Art Week.

Modelled on the successful Cape Town Art Week, the Johannesburg edition will feature about 36 galleries in five art hubs - Braamfontein, Rosebank, Soweto, Alexandra and Maboneng - showcasing the best, brightest and weirdest creations on the Johannesburg art scene.

Highlights include Roger Ballen's Asylum of the Birds at Circa on Jellicoe in Rosebank and a group exhibition at GOM.ART gallery in Alexandra.

• Art Week Joburg runs from today until Sunday. There will be shuttles operating between the galleries and hubs. www.artweek.co.za