Zuma painting: Streets closed for court bid
2012-05-22 09:11
Johannesburg - Several streets around the
High Court in Johannesburg will be closed on Tuesday to allow ANC members to
protest, the city's metro police said.
Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar said
sections of Pritchard and President streets would be closed off.
"The roads will be closed because of the
ANC protest. They will re-open after 15:00."
The court will hear an application by the ANC
to compel the Goodman Gallery to take down a 1.85m-high painting titled
"The Spear", which is part of Brett Murray's "Hail to the Thief
II" exhibition. The party was also trying to stop City Press from
displaying a photo of it on its website.
Earlier on Tuesday, the ANC Women's League's
Gauteng branch called on its members to "heed the call of the ANC"
and support the court action.
"No South African, despite the office
they occupy, deserves such disrespect and only a perverse mind would draw such
malicious depictions," the league said in a statement.
"We condemn the art work with the
contempt that it deserves and hope that Brett Murray will use this time to do
some much needed introspection on his values and ethics as a human being."
The ANC called on its members to gather
outside the court "to defend the dignity, reputation and integrity of the
president of the ANC".
The Times newspaper reported on Tuesday that
a spokesperson for the Nazareth Baptist Church, Enoch Mthembu, has called for
Murray to be stoned.
"This man has insulted the entire nation
and he deserves to be stoned to death. What he did clearly shows his racist
upbringing because art does not allow people to insult others."
The ANC served the gallery and the City Press
with court papers of Friday.
"These court papers are seeking to
interdict both parties from displaying and exhibiting on their website or any
other platform, including the online channels, the offensive and distasteful
so-called portrait," ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said.
The Cape Times reported on Tuesday that
Murray did not intend to harm anyone with the painting.
"I never intended the artwork to cause
any hurt or to harm the dignity of any person," he said in a responding
affidavit to Zuma's court application.
He said his work was "an attempt at
humorous satire of political power and patriarchy within the context of other
artworks in the exhibition and within the broader context of South African
discourse".
The gallery has rejected ANC demands to take
the painting down, saying it would stay until the show was over. City Press has
also refused to comply.
"Members of the ANC, supporters and the
mass democratic movement structures are requested to converge at Kruis Street,
in Johannesburg as from 10am as an act of solidarity to the president and the
ANC," the ruling party said.
The painting has been widely condemned by,
among others, Arts and Culture Minister Paul Mashatile, the presidency and the
Congress of SA Trade Unions.
Meanwhile, the Film and Publication Board
still had to decide if "The Spear" needed to be removed. Its
classifiers visited the gallery on Monday following complaints from members of
the public.
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