Genocide: ANC-regime's ongoing destruction of Afrikaans culture and history: subjects: artist Pierneef and assassinated Premier Dr H F Verwoerd
Genocide: ANC-regime 's ongoing destruction of Afrikaans culture and history in South Africa:
Subjects featured below:
Demonising landscape artist Pierneef and turning the assassin of Dr Hendrik F. Verwoerd into a 'struggle hero':
Below:
1. The demonisation and ridiculing of South African artist Pierneef:
2. The hero-worshipping of Dr Hendrik Verwoerd's assassin in 'art project'
1. Who was Pierneef?
"Visiting Pierneef Country": Text and pictures: Nick Van Der Leek. Article Feb 2012 Country Life Magazine.
He wrote: "Visiting the countryside that inspired Pierneef brings home why he’s arguably South Africa’s greatest painter.
I approach an electric perimeter fence with my camera. Beyond the wire is a vineyard, whitewashed buildings and a pair of soaring peaks.
It’s the scene depicted by Pierneef in his Peaks seen from Lanzerac. I lean forward to photograph it just right and accidentally touch a wire with my left hand.
ZZZik! A short time later I land back on my flip-flops, feeling as though I’ve been kicked hard in the back – and convinced the fence is operating just fine.
Pierneef’s painting shows a copse of massive bluegums rising over the winelands and dwarfing the Lanzerac homestead.
Today there’s no sign of the trees. I also notice that the buildings he depicted have been replaced by a hotel and spa.
And when I go tramping through the vineyard, trying to line up the mountains as they are in Pierneef’s Peaks, the vines are twice as tall as I am (unlike in the painting).
http://showme.co.za/lifestyle/pierneef-country/
Sales prices of Pierneef Paintings:
http://vbujia.blogspot.nl/2013/05/jacobus-hendrik-pierneef-south-afrcan.html
----
1. Demonising and ridiculing Pierneef:
-- ' Dancing on Pierneef's Grave: Published in " Art South Africa "volume 8 issue 1 2010"
http://chadrossouw.com/wayne-barker-interview/
" Super Boring"- Interview: "Wayne Barker is putting on a show of new work at SMAC in Stellenbosch called Super Boring.
Accompanying the show is a 25-year retrospective catalogue of his work.
RS: Where did the title Super Boring come from?
WB: The idea came in Venice, when a very famous German artist, Wolfgang Tillmans, was pushing into the bar in front of me. I said, “Hey what you doing?” He said, “Fuck you. You are boring.” I said, “Fuck you. You are super boring.” When he opened his wallet there were just loads and loads of dollars. Eventually, virtually the whole bar was screaming at this guy, “Super boring, super boring.” And that’s how the title came about.
From that I’m doing pastiches of some the paintings that have sold for the highest prices in South Africa, like Maggie Laubscher , Irma Stern and Pierneef.
They are painted like a colour-blind person would see and have neons on them saying super boring.
Part of Barker’s new work is a series called Legends. They are digital paintings silkscreened onto canvas. They pay homage to people who have changed the culture of the country from artists to musicians and a few politicians
Pierneef
A recurring image in Barker’s work are copies and pastiches of Pierneef’s landscape paintings.
WB: I was angry about the landscape, and did a whole lot of research on Pierneef and his vibe.
RS: Why Pierneef? Surely there were other landscape painters that achieved something similar.
WB: Firstly they were easy to copy, because of their Tintin comic vibe. I saw him as the first South African Pop Artist. Imagine going to the railway station, where there were these massive paintings. I was brought up with all this iconography. This was a target I could attack. He was employed to paint this beautiful landscape to get the Broederbond and to get the whole, Afrikaans nationalist thing to fight against the English, and to say who they are. Which in a way is quite charming in retrospect, but at the time of apartheid I was fucking furious.
RS: Isn’t it as insidious now?
WB: In a way. Just the idea that through art and culture they could make this nationalism. Which is completely fucked up anyway. So obviously I’d put targets and stuff on.
Now in the Legends Series, I still often use Pierneef.
RS: How do the Pierneef’s relate in this new work. I understand in the old work, there was a sense of anger against nationalism. How does it tie in with the heroes theme?
WB: The way that I’ve seen it, is when you are in the Karoo or Cape Town and suddenly you look at this shit and you’re like, “Fuck it! It is very Pierneef-esque.”
RS: Do you think he has come to define the landscape after all?
WB: No. Yes, Probably he did. The way I’m using it now, it’s a readymade, a copy of a copy of the landscape.
RS: In John Peffers recent book, Art and the End of Apartheid, he talks quite extensively about the Pierneef painting that you smashed.
WB: It was basically the first performance I did. It was a beautiful copy of Pierneef’s ‘Apies River’. I befriended a real workers shebeen, a totally low bottom of the range shebeen and I decided to do the performance in there. I was friends with the owner and some of the locals but sometimes it can become quite tricky, because, here is this whitey who could afford a little bit more beer than the locals. At that time maybe not so much more. And it was often quite scary. In the performance on video, it was quite interesting to literally absolutely destroy that icon.
RS: Why did you choose that particular shebeen to do it.
WB: It was over the road from me and it was where I used to hang out and drink and they always asked what I did. Often I’d get workers and stuff to visit my studio. And a good test for me was if they liked the paintings. So the shebeen seemed a good place to destroy it. The place was called Avanganye, which means lets be friends. I was trying to be friends with the nation by destroying the old icons.
RS: How did the people react?
WB: I think they were horrified. It really was well painted, I really studied Pierneef and his painting techniques.
And suddenly red enamel filled the whole surface area. And they said this guy must be crazy.
RS: Have you seen that work by Avant Car Guard where they dance on Pierneef’s grave?
WB: I really like what they’re doing. At one point you think it’s a cheap trick and its not going to have sustenance. I think it is already gaining a good momentum. Because it is very easy to attack targets, but difficult to sustain it and keep it interesting
RS: Do you think you have managed to sustain attacking targets?
WB: Maybe now I am becoming soft. Fucking celebrating Ingrid Jonker and JM Coetzee [In his Legend series of paintings].
RS: Do you feel softer?
WB: Not really. I think art should always be challenging and thought provoking. That’s what makes good art. The only way it works is if doesn’t come from a thing where I want to go and piss on somebody. If it comes from a genuine feeling.
RS: So you’re less angry now?
WB: It’s a different anger. The society and the environment that I came from, informed my life. Informs my life. And being brought up in all that apartheid shit. I mean its quite boring, its fucking boring, but it was quite heavy. All my rebellious, anarchic actions were obviously informed by that. I didn’t want to be controversial. But there were icons and shit to be broken down. The reputation of me being a rabble rouser, well I guess sometimes I am. It was about breaking down systems. I suppose art was a release.
In a way there is a sort of a cynicism. I was thrilled when Mandela was released. Now maybe I’m not so thrilled about so many things.
http://chadrossouw.com/wayne-barker-interview/
=====================
2. Ridiculing the assassination of dr H F Verwoerd and turning his assassin David Pratt into a 'struggle hero':
"Penny Siopis’s video installation, which was shown at the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town, is an attempt to explicate something of the psychology of that year. A year that saw the arrest of Robert Sobukwe and the PAC’s defiance campaign which resulted in Sharpeville and the 30,000 man march into Cape Town. It also, significantly, marked perhaps one of the last active white liberal interventions into South African politics; that is to say the attempted assassination of Dr Hendrik Verwoerd by David Pratt.
*
Also read:
Also read:
■ The white minority in SA are in great danger even reporters are now censored for exposing the threat
"We are not talking about apartheid now...We are talking about vandalizing and diminishing peoples history. All over the world where people tried to diminish a groups history, GENOCIDE FOLLOWED"~SABC-TV journalist
