By Louise Chen
Originally published on artinfo.com, July 15, 2010
Within a week of his 92nd birthday, former South African president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela has received the rather grotesque tribute of being depicted dead and undergoing an autopsy in a painting being exhibited in an upmarket Johannesburg shopping center.
The artwork, on view at Hyde Park Mall, has generated a storm of scathing criticism directed at South African artist Yuill Damaso, who modeled the composition of the painting on Rembrandt's celebrated 1632 The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulip.
In Damaso’s rendering, Mandela is lying on the autopsy table in exactly the same position as the executed criminal in the original Flemish masterpiece, with a host of fellow prominent South African politicians gathered around the table, including fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Jacob Zuma, former president Thabo Mbeki, and opposition leader Helen Zille. In a macabre touch, the late child AIDS activist Nkosi Johnson, who died of the disease at 12, is depicted dissecting Mandela’s left forearm.
Enraged by the painting, the African National Congresscondemned Damaso for assaulting Mandela’s dignity. "The ANC is appalled and strongly condemns in the strongest possible terms the 'Dead Mandela' painting," the congress said in a statement released to Agence France-Presse. "It is in bad taste, disrespectful, and it is an insult and an affront to values of our society."
According to the artist, he meant no disrespect with the artwork but meant to highlight Mandela's mortality as a way of humanizing the historic figure, who survived apartheid and the Sharpeville Massacre to lead his country into becoming a desegregated democracy.
Mandela's fictional death in Damaso's painting, however, is particularly insensitive at the moment considering the failing health of Mandela, who was unable to make an appearance at the opening ceremony of the World Cup or the final game yesterday in Johannesburg.