Let’s put SA back on high road to greatness

We can turn this around by voting in a DA administration, writes Michael Wood.

How is it possible that the rail infrastructure can be allowed to be vandalised and stolen over a period of time?

This taking place often in broad daylight. Rail tracks, overhead cables, signal equipment and even buildings are not spared. This while the very agency set up to protect such infrastructure, the Railway Police, was closed down.

All this is possible, as we have the ANC governing – I use the word with great circumspection – the country.

The world is undergoing a boom in the price of commodities.

SA can’t take full advantage of this situation, as our rail network can’t move the minerals to the various ports of exit, in the required volumes.

We have huge backlogs at these very ports as well.

The DA in the Western Cape has once again been proactive in wanting to take over the running of ports and rail networks in that province. People are saying that Transnet could be the next Eskom.

This will be the death knell for our economy. We can turn this around by voting in a DA administration in 2024. Let’s put SA back on the high road to greatness.

Brothels have flourished in Germany since prostitution was legalised 20 years ago.

One of them, located in Berlin, has been transformed into an art gallery to exhibit the work of sex workers – an initiative that shines the spotlight on people who are all too often invisible.

Berlin is home to around 500 brothels, according to estimates by the Erotik Gewerbe Deutschland organisation. But Studio Lux stands out from the other brothels in the German capital for the art gallery it houses.

For a few weeks, this BDSM dungeon has been hosting an exhibition titled Art. Sex. Cash. It features paintings, sketches, photographs, performances and art installations selected by Lady Velvet Steel and curator Lilith Terra.

The works featured in Art. Sex. Cash were created by sex workers. They highlight the similarities that connect the worlds of art and fetishism.

“Historically speaking, brothels have always inspired culture,” dominatrix Lady Velvet Steel pointed out to Artnews.

Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pablo Picasso are among the many artists who took an interest in brothels and the young women who worked in them. In fact, there has been no shortage of male – and often macho – perspectives on the world’s oldest profession.

“Sex workers are always the objects of art historically,” the sculptor and stripper Ginger Angelica told the specialist publication.

Studio Lux aims to counter this pictorial tradition by showing that sex workers are not only models or subjects of inspiration, but also creators.

Those participating in the Art. Sex. Cash exhibition are artists in their own right. This is the case of the video and visual artist Dasa Hink, also known as Katherine Rixdorf.

She chose to turn to the sex industry because it affords her the time to be an artist.

“So many of my colleagues are artists. They prefer this flexible job which encourages creativity, and allows for an abundance of time,” the artist wrote in a post on her Instagram page.

While Studio Lux’s initiative may come as a surprise, many cultural institutions are now looking at the role of sex work in our societies.

The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London has mounted an entire exhibition on the subject, entitled Decriminalised Futures. In it, 13 international artists show their work.

“Sex workers and their allies have fought tirelessly for strong workers’ rights, an end to exploitation, an end to [the] criminalisation [of sex work], and real measures to address poverty,” the exhibition co-curators, Elio Sea and Yves Sanglante said in a statement.

“Art is one of the best ways for sex workers to mediate their experiences to a public that would never be able to understand it otherwise,” performer Liad Hussein Kantorowicz told Artnews.–