When art confronts politics and the corporate boardroom

Nelson ‘Madiba’ Mandela remains an international figure many hold dear for his leadership and rectitude. It was therefore to great dismay around the world that a South African artist should portray Madiba being sexually assaulted by President Jacob Zuma in a work the artist titled, “The Economy of Eape”. The artist, Ayanda Mabulu, was supposedly protesting Zuma’s leadership, claiming the President is violating democratic values of the country that Mandela supposedly represented in the painting. President Zuma is often the butt of cartoonists’ political satire in South Africa, some of them not unlike Mabulu’s. But the work left little to the imagination, and was roundly condemned as abhorrent and grossly lacking in respect. Did the artist take his right to freedom of speech too far? What is the limit to this right? That is the question art often has to grapple with. Madiba and Zuma are public figures, by the token of which they become elevated into being public symbols, thus belonging to nobody and everybody. In untangling personhood and symbolism, it is thus in the nature of public art to sometimes raise heated passions, even by the seemingly most innocuous and straightforward of concepts. Take the concept of the “Fearless Girl” captured in the bronze sculpture depicting a young girl standing defiantly with hands on her hips in front of the famous Charging Bull in New York’s Manhattan Financial District. The sculpture was meant to celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day. State Street Global Advisors, the firm that commissioned the work aimed it to represent the power of women in leadership, and thought that the image of a girl would be more relatable than one of an adult woman in questioning their dismal numbers of women representation in the corporate boardroom. The message is universal, and certainly rings true in the EAC, even in corporate Rwanda where women are inadequately represented. But in New York where it proved a crowd puller, as reported in the Atlantic Magazine, some derided it as “Wall Street pinkwashing” and that it was a PR gimmick. They dismissed it as “fake corporate feminism” with little to do with promoting gender equity. While it proved the point sparking debate, Arturo Di Modica, the sculptor who created the Charging Bull statue was against it. He was accusing the Fearless Girl’s sponsors of copyright infringement. Di Modica claims it was changing the message of his work; that the Fearless Girl was “attacking the bull” he’d created, as his work was placed on Wall Street a symbol of a booming economy. The debate continues to rage, but is nothing compared to the 2015 Charlie Hebdo murders of the French satire magazine cartoonists and journalists. This was in retribution by Muslim fanatics offended by lampooning of their supreme prophet on a cover issue of the magazine. The murders denote an extreme reaction, while the Fearless Girl’s is probably only as good as raising an intellectual debate on policy options. The symbolism of a defiant little girl would be nothing to be violent about. Ayanda Mabulu’s artwork, on the other hand, probably lies somewhere between the two for the ire and disgust it appears to have provoked. So, did he take it too far? International law is categorical that he may not have, specifically under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). But I will submit that some things can be too personal. And, speaking for myself as a dabbler in literary art, I would be inclined to agree with the ICCPR, though an anecdote on the Pope would probably best illustrate a human dilemma. Shortly after the Charlie Hebdo killings, Pope Francis fielded questions from journalists on the plane as he was travelling to the Philippines. After condemning the massacre in strongest terms possible while citing the right to freedom of expression, he was asked whether there were limits to free speech. “We watched transfixed as he responded to [the] question,” a BBC reporter narrated. Swinging his arm to demonstrate, she explained, Pope Francis made clear that if his friend insulted what was most dear to him – his mother, for example – that friend could expect a punch. It was not what many liberal fans of the Pontiff had expected.

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When art confronts politics and the corporate boardroom