Notes

The ‘icon’ in question [in the present lot] is our own Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, an international figure revered around the world, acclaimed, and claimed by all. A hero who is a prisoner of the mass media! With his birthday decreed and celebrated internationally as Mandela Day. ‘Madiba Magic’ is real. What then of the man? The ‘Character, Comrade, Leader, Prisoner, Negotiator, Statesman’ (the title of an exhibition on his life at the Apartheid Museum). What lies beneath the printed iconic smile and familiar face? Who owns the Icon and the reproduction and exploitation of it as a commodity in a consumer society? Who decrees who or what can be shown and how? Beezy Bailey the artist/iconoclast poses these questions by holding the iconic image up, placing it centrally in his new work.

Christopher Till

Exhibited

Everard Read, Johannesburg, Icon – Iconoclast: Beezy Bailey, 5 May to 5 June 2011.

Literature

Everard Read (2011) Icon – Iconoclast: Beezy Bailey, Johannesburg: Everard Read, illustrated in colour on page 17 with the title Out of the Woods.