'Don't touch my Zuma art or I'll moer you,' says Mabulu

870-Artist Ayanda Mabulu stands next to his painting during an exhibition on display at constitution Hill yesterday. Picture:Dumisani Dube 13.07.2016

870-Artist Ayanda Mabulu stands next to his painting during an exhibition on display at constitution Hill yesterday. Picture:Dumisani Dube 13.07.2016

Published Jul 14, 2016

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Johannesburg - Controversial artist Ayanda Mabulu has vowed to “moer” any disgruntled person who might try to vandalise his painting that depicts President Jacob Zuma in a sexual act with Atul Gupta.

The 35-year-old said he was aware that the painting, titled Prostitute, has raised the ire of many South Africans.

However, he could not care less.

In fact, he has even vowed to beat anyone who might want to vandalise it, like Barend la Grange and Lowie Mabokela did in 2012 to Brett Murray’s Spear of the Nation painting which had depicted Zuma with his genitals exposed.

Speaking on Wednesday at Constitution Hill where the painting is on display, Mabulu said: “Any man who wants to vandalise it, I’ll moer him right here. If anyone thinks he can do that, come now. Not in my work, that’s my time, that’s my everything. You ANC loyalist, whoever, come now I’m here. I’m not Brett Murray,” he said.

The painting, which has polarised the nation on whether it is art or just plain disrespect to the president, shows Zuma in a cockpit of an aeroplane with Atul Gupta against a backdrop of an ANC flag.

The elder Gupta brother is naked and bending over with his buttocks in Zuma’s face as Zuma sticks his tongue out. Another plane is approaching to seemingly crash into the one the pair is in.

One of the people apparently offended by the painting confronted Mabulu at the gallery, accusing him of insulting “someone’s father”.

“Say for instance I feel offended and act in a way that you should not like… like our president may not like the way you are acting. Are you going to take it?” the man asked.

“I don’t like the way he’s acting,” Mabulu responded.

“If I don’t like the way you are acting, are you going to take it? I am asking, are you going to take it if I say ‘I am fed up with the way you behave’, are you going to take it?” the man asked again, accusing Mabulu of inciting violence.

However, Mabulu did not back down, saying: “I’m here to be crucified on behalf of what I said. It’s the truth.”

“Truth what? This? No it’s truth to you, not everybody,” the man responded, prompting other people to step in and tell the man to stop being personal.

Mabulu has other paintings which show Zuma with his genitalia exposed and says the significance of genitalia in his art was as a way of exposing that which was hidden.

He said the current painting depicts state capture by the Guptas and all the wrong the ruling party and Zuma were doing.

He said he wanted to document what was happening through art so that his children could one day understand where the destruction of South Africa started and understand why the country is in the state it was in. As the sex act is happening in a cockpit, Mabulu said that symbolises the landing of the Gupta plane at Waterkloof, a serious security breach.

“It means we are in danger, we could be terrorised at any point in time and could be sold by our president. The plane addresses that. It’s a metaphor of the country, that we are about to crash.

"The economy has crashed, the rand is at its lowest, the lives if black people in the country is deteriorating. I just wish those people saying this is disrespectful can give me their take on what the ruling party and the president are doing to the country,” he said.

ANC spokesman, Zizi Kodwa, called for South Africans to condemn the artwork, saying it was vulgar and undermined the dignity of those portrayed in it.

“It is nothing but vulgarity, disrespect and the abuse of freedom of expression. The paintings undermine the right of media and press freedom and also go beyond what satire is about. You don’t find a way of exercising your freedom of expression by undermining the dignity of anther person,” he said.

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