A piece for peace and the bandits triumph
Bully tactics, testosterone and mindless sloganeering rule as we approach Mangaung,
THE town clowns who promised to protest naked at the Goodman Gallery have at least one last wish fulfilled – the removal of The Spear from the websites of the gallery and a Sunday newspaper.
This can only mean that the culture wars of 2012 are largely rhetorical and symbolic.
At the Snorting Grunter we learn something every day about the ANC’s Kama Sutra – that they keep changing positions because they have an image problem.
At the top of the pile is the poster child of artistic abuse and a looming Mangaung conference that promises to pit commie against commie.
So paranoia runs high while the über-breeding of personalities in the ANC continues unabated.
As you know, the ANC’s hysterical mean machine was unleashed on the streets this week.
Commies who “matter ”, such as Blade Nzimande, were there to make sure the revisionist narrative of the left was maintained.
And the great beard and orator Gwede Mantashe, and Jackson Mthembu, known as “Boozy Jacko” in some midnight circles, were also there to dress the wound of the delicate genius who was wronged.
What is a strike without left-leaning commies making grand gestures, photo opportunities and wiping it out for all to see?
Though the piece has been modified and retouched into something like abstract surrealism, those among the marchers who received testosterone earlier in their lives felt the goal was not achieved.
Blood must spill or the march is not legitimate.
That seems to be the natural social norm of South African life.
The whole purpose of the march was to organise high calibre wingnuts in the townships, feed the beast, cram him in a bus and foster his naivete by telling him that The Spear is abusive, personal, incendiary and irrelevant, merely a re-enactment of apartheid trotting under a liberal idiom.
What better way to convince the people than holding true to the idealism of we the disregarded, we
“the persecuted”?
For the Goodman Gallery it’s a difficult decision to take down a painting, considering that the core business of galleries is to exhibit and sell artworks.
One controversial piece missing from the gallery defeats the purpose of the whole exhibition. In art curatorship there is something called sequence and storyline and the overall theme of the exhibition.
One piece is linked to the other. Works of art are not mounted on a whim or chance of luck.
The curator has to oversee every detail of the production.
The artist and the curator have to work together to sew a narrative thread that speaks for the work.
For the sake of peace the gallery did well to remove the piece from their website, otherwise this thing could have dragged on until the Mangaung conference.
What has become clear from all this is that the ANC and the alliance still make out like bandits.
The freewheeling use of threats drives their campaign strategy.