Cast your mind back to 2012, when Jacob Zuma supporters protested outside Johannesburg’s Goodman Gallery in anger over artist Brett Murray’s, should we say rather revealing, painting of their boss, titled The Spear.
Remember how the artwork was later defaced by two of these acolytes and that the ANC, when it still liked Zuma of course, briefly took the artist and gallery to court in defence of its great leader, who was president at the time?
What a difference 12 years makes. It’s hard to imagine the current iteration of the ruling party doing anything but smirk over that piece of cultural criticism. How leadership changes, politicians pivot and artistic taste wavers with such ease.
Murray might be a decade older and now represented by Everard Read, but he is lightyears more consistent than the flip-floppers running SA Inc. This is certainly true of his career-long knack for societal commentary through art.
Murray is wont to say that he’s softened in his “old age”. He spent the Covid lockdown and the time since crafting a world of animal-like sculptural avatars that underscore the importance of family, love and looking after each other, so perhaps there’s some truth to his claim of being softer. Bunny broods aside, there’s still a satirical self-reflective court-jester energy to the work the Cape Town-based artist now produces.
Comments on capitalism
Take his latest works, titled Fiscal Cliff and Wealth Management. In both, Murray has turned his critical gaze on the world of capitalism and finance. Where the first work, a sculpture, is concerned, it doesn’t get more metaphorically obvious than copulating hyenas. They’re smiling maniacally as one nudges the other over a cliff.
What average South African wouldn’t identify with that image? Taxes, the cost of living, our desire for fine things, unemployment – it’s a constant entanglement at the edge of the economic precipice.
Characteristically, Murray doesn’t take his own work too seriously, though the message is piercing. “Are they playing or fucking? Well, that depends if you want to get the work for your kids’ room or if you want it for your office,” he says with a laugh.
“The image is basic and crude but it’s a commentary on us fornicating at the trough of indulgence and greed and avarice,” he says – though he’s quick to include himself in the capitalist miasma. “I suppose I’m in the privileged classes. That doesn’t stop me from pointing fingers with full understanding that four fingers are pointing back at me,” he says.
Murray says he understands that he is part of the problem, at least in the context of the chasm between the rich and the poor in South Africa. “But at least having some level of self-reflection keeps you honest. I think if it was just flag waving and throwing stones without that and understanding, then these works might just be insults,” he says.
Wealth Management is more literal in its treatment of the financial realm and with its playful use of only words. It is vintage Murray: “selling climax”, “rising bottoms” and “naked options” are all in the mix.
“I bought a book of terms used in the investment and banking industries published by Business Day almost 20 years ago,” he says. “I’m not sure why. I know nothing about either industry but thought that if I put the publication under my pillow, perhaps I’d take on some of the financial nous by osmosis. It didn’t work.”
The book floated around Murray’s studio and after paging through it, he came across a few terms with hilarious double meanings. A glance at this salaciously suggestive list is revealing of banking’s instinct for subtle insurgency. (Ed’s note: could you explain, simply, what all these financial terms mean? No googling).
Unlike the ANC in 2012, we doubt the stockbrokers, bankers and Reserve Bank economists are going to be picketing outside Everard Read anytime soon – for one thing, you’d want to believe they’ve got better art sensibility and take themselves less seriously than our politicians.
Either way, instead of laughing all the way to the bank with their piles of moolah, perhaps they should pick up a highly collectable Murray. Next year there’s a retrospective of his sculpture at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town, and that’s bound to do great things for their value.
* Fiscal Cliff Bronze, 2024, Edition of 6, R285,000 each; Wealth Management, 2024, Edition of 8, R40,000 each. Everard Read
