King DiniZulu surveys the land. As does Louis Botha. Like figures from a novel – either science fiction or post-modern – they look lost in their urban landscape. Once enormously powerful, they are both now reduced to the role of ghosts, who although visible to the naked eyes are largely unseen by all those who pass by; they cannot move. And what would they think of the histories they helped to make, as they look out onto the gentle delapidation of the bottom of Berea Road – or King DiniZulu North as it is now known? And why are they wearing red bandanas?
The bandana’d statues are the work of Durban Art Gallery education officer Bongani Mkonzsa who staged the intervention, together with a walk through town to Farewell Square outside the gallery, where a bunch of mostly male former colonialists have also had a red bandana added to their already elaborate dress in an attempt to raise awareness around the HIV virus. The march was led by perfomer and activist Musa Njoka and staged, along with the interventions, as part of the major exhibition Not Alone: Make Art Stop Aids, still on show at the DAG.
Bongani’s intervention – together with the walk through town where the friendly, smiling faces of this year’s political nominees lurched out insistently – gave me an idea for another intervention, one in which you, me and everyone we know can participate. While there are only a small number of statues to subvert, there are a relatively infinite number of election posters, most of them just begging for a bit of decoration. And of course, a few of them have already have that desire satisfied; you may have seen pictures of the ANC poster on whom someone has drawn a red mask over Jabob Zuma’s face in the style of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and dubbed him Zumatello. But I thought that, if - all over South Africa - we stuck red aids ribbons on the lapels of those who appear in the election posters, we could very simply and subliminally, put one the country’s real burning issues onto the political agenda. This would add a degree of meaning to the whole thing, something you’d be hard pressed to find in any of the empty words that accompany the campaign portraits.
I know it’s illegal to mess with election posters so I’m not actually advising you to do any of this. But if you did, it would be great, and if you’re caught I have nothing to do with it.
One of the wonderful things about art is the way that it fiddles with notions of legality, acceptability and structure. In fact, it’s a key part of the job. Without the possibility of subversion, art history would be bland and blank, a canvas of little more than ever-increasing virtuosity. And only the hardest of hearts would call this particular aid ribbon intervention vandalism, vaguely subversive as it might be. I just had another look at my own virtual intervention - the photoshopped ANC poster that accompanies this column – and I was struck by the fact that if it had been a real campaign poster, it would mean that we were living in a far more compassionate society.


And I was struck also by the idea that probably the single most important issue for many, many South Africans is that current health minister Barbara Hogan be allowed to keep her post. But that’s not even an element of the conversation; it’s just incidental.
The urban monuments reminded me of a conversation that I was having with former Durbanite Siemon Allen who now lives in the United States but who was in town to install his remarkable triad of installations, Newspapers, Stamps and Records (collectively titled Imaging South Africa) at the Durban Art Gallery and Bank Gallery.


Siemon, whose own work verges on the monumental despite the fact that you could pack it all into a few cardboard boxes, was talking about how much he loved bridges and freeway infrastructure – a fondness I share with him. And like Siemon, I’ve always felt a bit sorry for sculptors who live in the same world as these giant structures.

When this is all over and we are all gone, and the things we make are thrown away or packed into boxes or archives or adorn walls or hearts or even occupy public squares or are collapsed into virtual space, these giant concrete structures designed so exclusively - so exquisitely – for function, will still reach into the sky, will still hug the earth they span, caring not for meaning or love or suffering, dimly unaware of their own material fatigue which will someday take them too. That’s what Jeremy Wafer has to compete with.
Finally, if you’re in Durban over the next few weeks, check out the exhibition Harbour at the KZNSA Gallery. Full of super-saturated South African talent, it promises to be one of the most exciting groups show to take place this year.