Brett Murray is back with a new body of satirical work that continues his acerbic attacks on abuses of power, corruption and political dumbness

Brett Murray, left, and his bronze sculpture One Party State, 2010 CAPE TOWN Nov. 19, 2010 — By his own admission, Brett Murray is as disgusted by the language of his own press release as he is with the status quo of governance in South Africa. Speaking at a press walkabout at the Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, the artist read an excerpt from a statement announcing his new solo exhibition, Hail to the Thief, which opens tomorrow.

Tipping his reading glasses onto his nose, the Michaelis graduate and former University of Stellenbosch sculpture lecturer honed in on one particular bit of text. “Murray’s bronzes, etchings, paintings and silk-screens,” he read, “form part of a vitriolic and succinct censure of bad governance and are his attempts to humorously expose the paucity of morals and greed within the ruling elite.” The reading was followed by a number of sharp expletives. Installation view of Hail the Thief, with The Party vs. The People, 2010, in foregorund Underlying this self-conscious putdown is the artist’s genuine anger at what he views as the failure of the post-1994 dream. Active in the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, Murray describes the current status quo as “not a dream deferred, but a dream shat on”. He was explicitly referencing Mark Gevisser’s 2008 biography, Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, the book’s subtitle drawn from the title of a poem by Langston Hughes. Brett Murray, Viva Vavi, 2010, metal, gold and silver leaf, 149 x 147 x 13cm While the messaging animating many of his works is often unambiguous (“Biko is Dead”), provocative (“Oliver ‘On the Take’ Thambo”), and inviting of rote displays of outrage (a repurposed ANC logo features only the words “for sale”), Murray repeatedly spoke about how he found consolation in the process of making. Meticulously crafted, two bronze statues on display speak of his formal inclinations as a sculptor.

A close view of the surface of his parodic crests also offers its own pleasures — the gold leaf detailing has been overlaid onto rough, untreated metal surfaces. It is at the level of detail, one senses, that Murray’s anger and “default setting” as a satirical moralist is modulated, tempered, perhaps even reconciled. Take home graphics featuring the ANC’s “for sale” logo During the walkabout, after discussing the pros and cons of registering protest and public discontent in the rarefied context of a gallery, Murray revealed that the title for his current show was suggested by a piece of graffiti he had seen in New York last year, while on an Ampersand Foundation residency.

Asked about his impressions of younger artists working in either a satirical and/or poltical mode, he favourably mentioned Stuart Bird, Michael MacGarry and Dan Halter. He is also said, when asked about the recent criticism of Anton Kannemeyer’s work by Khwezi Gule as racist, that he admired Kannemeyer’s provocations.”I am Enid Blyton in comparison,” he said, referring to the English author of the popular – and not entirely uncontroversial – Noddy character.