An olive branch from the City Press; a written apology from the Goodman Gallery; and a public explanation from Brett Murray, the artist of The Spear.
|||SHAIN GERMANER, Theresa Taylor and Yusuf Omar
shain.germaner@inl.co.za, theresa.taylor@inl.co.za yusuf.omar@inl.co.za
An olive branch from City Press; a written apology from the Goodman Gallery; and a public explanation from Brett Murray, who painted The Spear.
Even with those three victories for the ANC, the anti-Spear march yesterday ended on an ultimatum: remove the paint-ing depicting President Jacob Zuma’s genitals from the gallery’s website, or the gallery would be shut down.
Around 2pm, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe emerged from the white building on Jan Smuts Avenue smiling from cheek to cheek and announced that the gallery would remove the image from its website.
“Mission accomplished, comrades,” shouted Mantashe. The crowd cheered. Mantashe added: “We can now read City Press, but don’t buy last week’s copy…”
But almost immediately after the words had left his mouth, the Goodman Gallery released a statement saying that although they had been in consultation with the ANC, no such decision had been made.
This was not the only disputed issue.
Mantashe and SACP head Blade Nzimande could not agree on the fate of the painting. Nzimande said it should not be sold to its German buyer, but rather destroyed, while Mantashe declared that its removal from the gallery and the two major websites on which it had featured was sufficient.
“Freedom of expression will be defended… but it is not a licence to insult or trample on dignity,” said Mantashe.
Despite the ANC applying to the police for a march of 50 000 people, no more then 5 000 arrived in hired buses.
But the police took no chances, with a huge riot contingent, some on horseback, and frequent helicopter flyovers.
Two elderly women on the fringe of the protest quietly sketched some of the protesters, whose placards read: “Draw your white father naked, not our president”, “Less skin, we win” and “We say NO to abuse of artistic expression”.