Redefning Portraiture in Commemorative Public Art: Four Portrayals of Nelson Mandela

It is argued in this chapter that most portrayals of Nelson Mandela are traditionalist – and indeed Eurocentric – in form. Even when showing him adopting gestures associated with accessibility, they draw on a visual language in which a ruler is constructed as inaccessible and removed from the immediate needs of ordinary citizens. Mimetic in style and deploying bronze, a material associated with timelessness and immutability, most are indebted to visual paradigms which convey messages about a sitter's absolute authority.There are, however, four representations of Mandela which resist these conventions and provide more progressive alternatives. Marco Cianfanelli's Release at the capture site in Howick in KwaZulu Natal and Shadow Boxing outside the Magistrates’ Court in Johannesburg, Anthony Harris and Konrad Geel's Voting Line in the Donkin Reserve in Gweberha and Usha Seejarim's portrayal made for Mandela's funeral in Xunu are notably different from the various figurative portrayals of him in bronze. These four works are explored in light of the concept of performativity as well as how they relate and respond to the sites in which they are placed. Through this, the focus is on identifying qualities that might be understood as key to the development of progressive public portraiture.