Jon Berndt: Imagined Billboards

by Keely Shinners

This essay examines three posters from Jon Berndt’s Imagined Billboards series (2005-2010), a body of work which has yet to be critiqued, due largely to Berndt having positioned himself outside the structures of the South African art industry. So too because the works were only exhibited after his death, in a seminar room named in his honour in the Arts Block at the University of Cape Town.    

Seeing as there is little published material regarding Jon Berndt’s life and career, some biographical detail is warranted to understand what drove him to create the Imagined Billboard series [1]. Particularly potent for me is how the Billboards, which were proposed towards the end of his life, synthesise Berndt’s interests in art, activism, study and design.

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