Ayanda Mabulu

Yesterday another naked painting of Jacob Zuma had the country talking, and of course everyone had an opinion. We contacted the co-curator of the show, Kirsty Cockerill, and asked her about why she included Ayanda Mabulu’s painting in her Our Fathers exhibition – consisting of 24 works in total.

Cockerill explains that she and her co-curator, Chantal Louw, included Mabulu’s work because it conveyed “a sincere question from a son to a father”. It fits within the context of the exhibition where father figures are portrayed in their social, leadership as well as intimate roles.

We agree that Ayanda statement needs to be read in its entirety so as not to misrepresent his intentions. Likewise it is disingenuous to read this artwork in relationship to the previous controversy/context . When it would be more accurate to read it in relationship to the Our Fathers exhibitions. Ayanda’s painting is one chapter of a book, and to read only one chapter will never do the chapter or the book justice. Ayanda’s painting is more different than it is similar, to Brett Murray’s The Spear.

As for the artist in question himself, below a video interview with Mabulu can be seen. The AVA gallery also sent us his full explanation for painting Zuma naked, as well as his thoughts on Brett Murray’s The Spear:

I’m not motivated by an urge to unpack Jacob Zuma’s sex life. That is not my concern orinterest. The painting depicting Jacob Zuma is a respectful one. He is clothed in his culture. He is clothed in his manhood. Only a Eurocentric view point would see him as naked. He is not naked; I did not paint him with an uncircumcised penis. This is a metaphor that shows he is not a boy; he is a man, an elder, a father, a leader. An elder who happens to be the president of South Africa. He is a representative of the ANC, which as a political party from my perspective, now represents its own interests, and less so, the interests of the/and his people, his children. In this painting I’m engaging my elder, in the language of my mothertongue, the language that carries the culture of my people, a language he understands themost. Through this painting I respectfully, as one of his children, ask my father why he is starving us. Why he is negating his duties to his children, the citizens of South Africa? I respect the ANC liberation elders, like Oliver Thambo and John Langalibalele Dube. They worked for the interests of the people. This ANC is filled with greed and the lust of capitalism. It drives a colonial dialogue. The ANC that you represent is the master manipulator, the weapon of destruction.When you call me a protest painter, you are insinuating I can’t communicate in a civilised manner. You are reacting defensively; you are saying you are being attacked. I’m not attacking you; I’m respectfully asking a question. When you call me and my people protestors, you are insinuating that we don’t have the intelligence to converse with a manor men of your status. The text on the painting, says 1976 uprising – 2012, because the uprising continues. This painting is not political it is social. I dedicate this painting to the miners who were massacred at the Lonmin mine. The question I ask in this painting is why; Umshini Wam has become Umkhonto UgwazaEkhaya (Spear stabbing in the home)? As a son, to a father, I respectively ask you why?

[Source: AVA Gallery, News24]