Johannesburg - Controversial artist Ayanda Mabulu has vowed to “moer” any disgruntled person who might try to vandalise his painting of President Jacob Zuma in a sexual act with Atul Gupta.
The 35-year-old, who is from King William's Town but has been living in Joburg for the past year, said on Wednesday he was aware that the painting, Prostitute, had raised the ire of many, but he couldn't care less.
In fact, he has 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.
Speaking at a gallery 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, I’m here.”
Prostitute, which has polarised the nation on whether it's art or just disrespectful, shows the president in a cockpit with Atul Gupta. At the side is an ANC flag.
Read more: ANC slams ‘vulgar’ Zuma-Gupta painting
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 are in.
One of the offended people confronted Mabulu at the gallery, accusing him of insulting “someone’s father”.
“Say I act in a way 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'm fed up with the way you behave. Are you going to take it?” the man asked again.
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 said.
Mabulu said the significance of genitalia in his art was a way of exposing that which was hidden.
He said the current painting depicted state capture by the Guptas and all the wrong the ANC and Zuma were doing.
Also read: Outcry over Zuma-Gupta sex painting
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.
The cockpit, Mabulu said, symbolised the landing of the Gupta plane at Waterkloof Air Force Base near Pretoria - a serious security breach.
“It means we are in danger, we could be terrorised and sold by our president. The plane addresses that. It’s a metaphor for the country: we are about to crash. The economy has crashed, the rand is at its lowest, the lives of black people are deteriorating. I wish those saying this is disrespectful could 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 painting, saying: “It is nothing but vulgarity, disrespect and the abuse of freedom of expression.”
The Star