South Africa: In a Flurry Over Murray - Painting of Zuma Has South Africans in a Tizz

opinion

The recent uproar over Brett Murray's painting of South African President Jacob Zuma The Spear in his latest exhibition Hail to the Thief II at Johannesburg's posh Goodman Gallery is simultaneously uplifting and depressing. The painting, which shows a Bolshevik Zuma with his genitals protruding from his suit, has been met by a phenomenal media and political storm.

Art critics, twitterati and cognoscenti are earnestly debating The Spear's artistic merits, prompted largely by threats of legal action by the ANC and protests by members of the public to take it down or keep it up. And, in a rather Situationist turn of events, four people have appeared in court in relation to the defacing of both the gallery and the painting on Saturday.

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