DELIGHT ELEPHANT SAGA Every so often, SAVE OUR BEREA features a DELIGHT and OUTRAGE post where we celebrate the good and criticize the downright ugly. Today we DELIGHT in the fact that “Durban has finally realised an elephant is just that, an elephant” and that the elephant saga in Warwick Avenue has finally been resolved. The Times had this to say. “After a bitter and protracted four-year battle over his Three Elephants sculpture in Durban, internationally acclaimed sculptor Andries Botha is back in Durbans Warwick Avenue - creating four new elephants. This was after he was forced to take the eThekwini Municipality to court when the R1.2-million centrepiece was removed because the ANC-led council said the three elephants were an IFP symbol. Its time to move forward. Its not for me to say this was ridiculous. Let others be the judge of that. Let the record stand for itself, he said yesterday. Botha said originally the city was excited because he presented the elephants as a metaphor for environmentalism. It was exactly how I presented it to them. I then told them I cannot and will not agree to taking things away for what is really a politicalisation of my artwork. It was never intended to be and it was never presented as a political metaphor, he said. Botha said the saga, which ended with an out-of-court settlement, had cost him financially and emotionally but he was trying to put it behind him. Its impossible for you not to feel it when you present something to the world and have it distorted and then also be labelled counter-revolutionary or a destructive energy for things that you didnt bring to the table. On a personal level it was a great shock and great disappointment that things could have been reduced to such a level. On an interpersonal level, to go through this thing, to fight against the city, not only places you in financial and emotional risk, but it is a massively debilitating exercise, he said. But the upside was the massive support Botha got from the public, he said. It has raised a lot of passion and focus on the role of arts and creativity and the necessity to be and to exist in the public space, he said.
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 10:43:11 +0000
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