Painting of a Dead Nelson Mandela Sparks Controversy

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (July 10) -- A painting showing Nelson Mandela dead, half-naked and undergoing an autopsy has sparked outrage here amid speculation as to whether the ailing 91-year-old anti-apartheid hero is well enough to preside over the end of the World Cup this weekend.

The mural is on display in Johannesburg's Hyde Park shopping mall. It shows Mandela's body on a table, surrounded by contemporaries like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former presidents F.W. de Klerk and Thabo Mbeki and politicians Trevor Manuel and Helen Zille, all wearing 17th century costumes. South Africa's youngest AIDS activist, 12-year-old Nkosi Johnson who died in 2001, uses a scalpel to tear into the icon's lifeless body.

Local artist Yiull Damaso has said the work, modeled after a 17th century Rembrandt masterpiece entitled "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp," is meant to be a tribute to Mandela, and a comment on how South Africa has not yet come to terms with his mortality.

The former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner has largely retired from public life but still has the most devoted following than any other South African figure, dead or alive. He turns 92 on July 18.

"Nelson Mandela is a great man, but he's just a man," Damaso told the BBC. "The eventual passing of Mr. Mandela is something that we will have to face, as individuals, as a nation."

But Damaso's choice of subject matter is considered a taboo in South Africa, where depicting the death of a living person is considered disrespectful at best, and possibly even witchcraft.

"It is in bad taste, disrespectful, and it is an insult and an affront to values of our society," Mandela's party, the ruling African National Congress, said in a statement excerpted by several news outlets.

"In African society it is a foreign act of ubuthakathi (witchcraft) to kill a living person... This so-called work of art... is also racist. It goes further by violating (Mandela's) dignity by stripping him naked in the glare of curious onlookers," it said.

The ANC also criticized the South African Mail & Guardian newspaper for running a front-page photo Friday of the unfinished painting, describing it as "gutter journalism and soul-less sensationalism."

In an accompanying story about the controversy over the painting, the newspaper quoted Damaso as describing how he received a phone call complaining about his work, which was hung in the Hyde Park center earlier this week, where he hopes to continue completing it.

"The person on the phone told me that she was a friend of one of Mandela's daughters and that the daughter was very upset about the painting," Damaso was quoted as saying. "I was told that they had recently had a death in the family and that they are still very bereaved."

Mandela's great-granddaughter, 13-year-old Zenani Mandela, died in a car accident on her way home from a concert on the eve of the World Cup's opening. A family friend faces possible drunk driving and homicide charges.

The tragedy prompted Mandela to cancel his appearance at the World Cup's opening ceremony on June 11, but there's speculation that he could be the one to present the winning team with the World Cup trophy on Sunday.

"Mr. Mandela and his family will make the decision about whether he attends or not on the day," his foundation said in a statement. The elderly leader has been credited with bringing the World Cup to South Africa this year, the first time the world's largest sporting event has ever been played on African soil.

The Hyde Park mall where Damaso's painting is on display has received several complaints about the work, some from Mandela's relatives, a mall spokeswoman told several news agencies. But she said that managers ultimately decided to keep the painting in place, abiding by the freedom of expression that Mandela helped to enshrine in the country's constitution.