bt4 — Nuweland Gallery

A rendition of Jannis Kounellis’ ‘Tragedia Civile’ (Italy, 1975), drawing on the history of the South African hero Francois Pienaar to reimagine the work for contemporary South Africa.

The title derives from the front page of The Sunday Independent, 25 June 1995, which features an image of Nelson Mandela handing Pienaar the Rugby World Cup trophy – an image that has become iconic in South Africa as a symbol of reconciliation and unity – and a headline referring to the country’s hopeful nickname, ‘The Rainbow Nation’.

In Kounellis’ ‘Tragedia Civile’ (Civil Tragedy), gold leaf lines the wall recalling in a commentator’s words “the past golden age in contrast to the disordered and compromised present”. In front of the wall is a coat rack with overcoat and hat, illustrating the limitations of the individual in relation to the demands of their position in history. A paraffin lamp (then already antiquated), on a shelf, lights the scene.

Here, though, there is no artist’s coat or hat: instead two Springbok rugby supporters jerseys hang stiffly from a coat stand: symbols of hope, unity and reconciliation that are eagerly donned by South Africans of all cultures in the shared patriotic ecstasy of World Cup victory celebrations. It is in these elated moments that the country’s divisions seem reparable but the attitude soon fades, until the next rendition of this now old act: after three such events in democratic South Africa, what once felt like divine hope now starts to feel rehearsed.

Further, the wall is not covered in gold leaf here but plastered with flattened chip packets, recalling the flood of international consumer goods following end of Apartheid and the lifting of sanctions. Lay’s Lightly Salted came to represent a new global sophistication, based on Western consumer culture, for middle class South Africans to aspire to. Pienaar, the face of South African unity alongside Nelson Mandela via the 1995 Rugby World Cup victory for South Africa, was also to become the face of Lay’s in their South African advertising.

Lastly, the paraffin lamp from Kounellis’ work remains, but is stripped of its nostalgic value in the context of Lawrence’s work by an awareness of the crisis of energy supply and the depths of poverty faced in the country.

In light of this, the words of Nelson Mandela during his inauguration speech in 1994 become bittersweet:
the mind and soul have been freed to fulfil themselves
humanity has taken us back into its bosom
The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come
The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement!