Magashule and the Pierneef: theft or expropriation without compensation?
It was reported earlier this week that ANC secretarygeneral Ace Magashule, wittingly or not, added a new instalment to the proud SA tradition of stealing paintings by JH Pierneef.
Somehow, a gilt-framed canvas worth millions of rand left the office of the then Free State premier with his personal possessions. It was “gifted” to security aide Ricardo Mettler, who “gave” it to an unnamed businessman, who tried to have it appraised for auction.
You can see the logic: what belongs to the state belongs to the ANC; what belongs to the ANC belongs to me as deployee; what belongs to me can also enrich those useful to me.
This warped version of arts patronage has been applied by the governing party and its cadres over the last two decades using art as a fraudulent means of bolstering networks of political patronage. Variations on the theme include the siphoning of public funds to pals and cronies through overblown commissions, the channelling of private funds from would-be pals and cronies into ANC coffers through the purchase of overpriced art works, and (bizarrely) the use of government credit cards to buy paintings via fast food joints.
In the case of Magashule and the missing Pierneef, however, some tantalising questions remain. Was this an ideological rather than a criminal act? Did he try to undermine Pierneef’s status in the art world, helping to devalue his work by stealthily introducing this mediocre painting into the market?
Pierneef is perceived by many to be a kind of visual apologist for colonialism and apartheid. His landscapes are sparsely populated; when there are signs of human habitation, these are usually well-kempt homesteads on aesthetically pleasing white farms, or happy black farmworkers in more modest abodes. There are few indicators of violence, theft, eviction, displacement, or the Land Act of 1913.
Magashule, we know, is deeply committed to undoing these historical injustices witness his support for black dairy farmers in Vrede while in charge of the Free State. He is a fervent advocate of land expropriation without compensation. So it would make sense for him to support this restorative vision by expropriating a dubious representation of the land in the form of a Pierneef painting.
I am agnostic on the matter of Pierneef’s complicity in apartheid propaganda, although I do think it was more about his work being co-opted than any culpability on his part. He was wary of Afrikaner nationalism and British imperialism alike. Yes, he painted the Union Buildings and the Voortrekker Monument but he disliked the former as an encroachment on his beloved Pretoria hills, and his depiction of the latter could be seen as an ironic treatment of its over-the-top subject.
I was thinking of Pierneef and Magashule as I stood atop Unisa’s Muckleneuk campus between the Union Buildings and the monument, looking out over SA’s administrative capital. The city was, as the October cliché has it, awash with the purple of jacaranda blossoms.
Pretoria is a beautiful-ugly place, literally and symbolically. It is “the seat of the president”: it has hosted Hendrik Verwoerd and Jacob Zuma, but also Nelson Mandela.
Before leaving the campus, I stopped at the Unisa Art Gallery, where a handful of graduate students’ work is being exhibited. Magashule, if you’re reading this and you want to expand your collection, you’ve got until the end of next week. There are two works in particular I think you’d like.
Stephanie Neville’s Like is an installation of printed selfies, stitched together into an enormous floating blanket of narcissism. Neville is critically aware of how both “faked and real” identity are captured in these “obsessive” images; but, as with the rhetoric of politicians, it is hard to separate the truth from the lie.
Then there is Angeline-Ann le Roux’s Follow the Thread ,a haunting installation in which “fragments of figures dismembered bodies made of black thread signify “abuse” and “brutality”. That’s a more accurate portrayal of your Free State legacy than a Pierneef, isn’t it Magashule?