Murray’s portrait showed Zuma in an iconographic Lenin-style pose, fully clothed apart from his penis, which is protruding from his zipper. The painting is called ‘The Spear of the Nation’. It is a stylised cartoon in red and black and is meant to satirise political power.
Murray says he wanted to make a point about how the leadership of the African National Congress, of which Zuma is president, had betrayed its Communist ideology. (…)
Barend La Grand, one of the (white) defacers of the painting, said that prior to the ANC statement and court action, he had had no problem with the painting. He liked Murray’s work and had admired the portrait.
What led him to deface the painting was his fear of black reprisals against South Africa’s minority white community, given that the painting was painted by a white artist and was being exhibited in a white-owned gallery.
He wanted blacks to know that some white people are sensitive to the feelings of the black community and do not want to cause them offence.
