The events of 21 March 1960 in Sharpeville might have been forgotten today, not to mention, deemed as ”boring” now but it is an important part of our history that helped shape that long road to Freedom. It also pushed a majority of SA creatives and artists to curate work that influenced the political moments and became a loud voice in the ears of the oppressor.
On march 21 1960, it was a sad day in South Africa asthe former apartheid police opened live ammunition on unarmed pass law protesters and injured 180 more in what we know today as the ‘Sharpeville Massacre’. This not only a turning point in the bloody history of South Africa’s fight for freedom, but also unleashed a generation of artists driven to express their moral outrage.
As we approach 21 March, which is the official national day of celebrating Human Rights day, we look at some of the art during that era that helped bolster the liberation movement.
Sam Nhlengethwa’s famous painting
Sam Nhlengethwa, who was five years old on the historic day, has returned to the massacre more than once, in a 1992 watercolour,Sharpeville Shooting, and a 2003 photolithograph and collage, Sharpeville Massacre.
Artistic renderings of the events at Sharpeville are unforgettable in part because of how they highlight the brutality of apartheid and the sacrifices made for democracy, but also because they remind us of other massacres: Boipatong, Bisho, Marikana.
Gerard Sekoto – Song of the picks
Song of the Pick is an example of Sekoto’s early mix of the REALISTIC or FIGURATIVE mode and the more EMOTIVE or EXPRESSIONISTIC. The scene depicted cuts to the heart of colonial and apartheid control of South African society. The rhythmic, symmetrical and powerful line of the black work gang is set against the lone white ‘BAAS’ in his khaki suit. Seidman made the Women’s Day drawing in 1981 as part of a brief to position women in the struggle. It was inspired by the women who marched to Pretoria on 9 August 1956 to protest the introduction of passes for women. In the liberation movement, the date was celebrated as a ‘national day’ and officially became a public holiday after the end of apartheid. The words in the poster were developed by the Medu Art Ensemble collective which was based in Botswana and which Seidman joined in 1980: “Now you have touched the women/ you have struck a rock/ you have dislodged a boulder/ you will be crushed.” The Solomon Mahlangu poster was designed for the 1982 anniversary of the 19-year-old uMkhonto weSizwe operative’s execution at the hands of the apartheid regime in 1979 A few hundred copies were silkscreened by Medu members, several of whom were also part of uMkhonto weSizwe structures, with the help of soldiers passing through Botswana. The works were then smuggled into South Africa and illegally displayed by members of the Johannesburg Silkscreen Training Project. They were torn down by the police the next day, but this poster remains one of Seidman’s best known. At a time when black South African artists were banned from art schools and museums, his art fused abstraction with polemical themes. Main image: SA History online This article has information sourced from different publishers as part of research under a Creative Commons license. The respective publications are New Frame, South African History online
Last Words of Kalushi.
David Koloane – Steve Biko’s Last Moments
In recent decades, despite his investment in South Africa’s cultural life — for many years he taught full time in a township high school — Mr. Koloane’s international presence grew. In 1995, he was invited by the Whitechapel Gallery in London to organize the South African section of the multipart show “Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa” for the Africa95 festival. He chose a specific theme: the life and violent death of the black South African activist Steven Biko, founder of the Black Consciousness Movement, who was arrested by South African police in 1977 and died after days of interrogation and torture.
