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The Constitutional Court building is not just a place for judges to hear cases. In fact, it doubles as an impressive gallery that boasts the works of dozens of leading South African artists - such as Marlene Dumas, Gerard Sekoto, Dumile Feni, Judith Mason, William Kentridge, Sipho Ndlovu, John Baloyi, Cecil Skotnes and Hamilton Budaza, to name but a few.
The collection consists of about 200 works of art in a range of media - including tapestries, engravings, sculptures and paintings.
All of these works of art, however, are connected to our constitutional democracy in some way and all contribute to the Court's special ambience. And, as gifts to the highest Court in the land, they are also tributes to the Constitution and the values it enshrines.
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Featured artists
Andrew Verster
Marlene Dumas
Overwhelming everything in the collection through sheer size and presence is 'The benefit of the doubt', a spectacular computer-generated tapestry in three parts by Marlene Dumas, an internationally acclaimed artist who was born in South Africa but now lives in Amsterdam.
Donated to the Court by the Dutch government and handed over by Prime Minister Wim Kok in 2001, each tapestry shows three figures in close-up, because, as the artist says, "One is alone, two is a couple and three is politics".
Dumas says "doubt is the basis of the constitutional state", making 'The benefit of the doubt' a piece particularly appropriate for the Court.
The work is identical to one that hangs in the Court of Justice in Den Bosch, in the Netherlands.
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Judith Mason
"Sister, a plastic bag may not be the whole armour of God, but you were wrestling with flesh and blood, and against powers, against the rulers of darkness, against spiritual wickedness in sordid places. Your weapons were your silence and a piece of rubbish. Finding the bag and wearing it until you were disinterred is such a frugal, common-sensical, house-wifely thing to do, an ordinary act…At some level you shamed your capturers, and they did not compound their abuse of you by stripping you a second time. Yet they killed you. We only know your story because a sniggering man remembered how brave you were. Memorials to your courage are everywhere, they blow about in the streets and drift on the tide and cling to thorn bushes. This dress is made from some of them."
Hamba kahle. Umkhonto.
'The Blue Dress' by Judith Mason is one of the most powerful works of art in the Constitutional Court's gallery. In fact Justice Albie Sachs, the driving force behind the collection, has been quoted as saying he thinks it one of the great artworks of the 20th century.
Mason's triptych depicts a dress constructed from bits of blue plastic at which a predatory animal is tearing.
The story behind this piece is fascinating. The artist had been listening to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings on the radio. She heard about a naked woman who, with only a piece of plastic covering her private parts, had been found in a shallow grave. The policeman who shot her in the head described how brave she had been - she had asked if she could kneel and sing Nkosi Sikelele before she was executed.
Mason was moved to gather several blue plastic bags and stitch them together to make a dress. A painting followed but Sachs, after seeing it, asked her to temper the snarling beast.
Mason produced a second painting, with a row of blazing braziers in the foreground, offering warmth and hope.
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Dumile Feni
Justice Albie Sachs, on conducting tours of the Court, has shared many anecdotes about the artists - several of whom he knows personally.
Sachs was close to Dumile Feni, a legend of the struggle era, during the artist's 23 years of exile in London and New York.
There is a story behind one of the pieces that hangs in the gallery: one evening in 1969 Feni visited Sachs in London and sketched a figure, giving it to him - ostensibly to pay for meals Sachs had shared with him.
'Penny whistler' shows a musician mollycoddled by Dumile's love and sensitivity; it glows with tenderness and warmth. And, as Sachs recalls, it all happened in a flash, in a spontaneous, un-laboured moment: "Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch"… and it was done.
"What was special about him", Sachs says, "was that, at a time when artists connected with the struggle were painting bodies being carried away, and fists and spears, and denunciations of the cruelty of the regime, Dumile was concentrating on the dignity of the people, their tenderness, their humanity."
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William Kentridge
William Kentridge's 'Sleeper' - a statement on vulnerability and remorse rendered with great empathy - shows a corpulent, naked and prostrate man who, unable to face the world, seeks comfort and solace in his own arms.
But there is more to the story: while this could be any one of us in a moment of desperation, 'Sleeper' is actually a representation of Ubu, the murderous, buffoonish dictator from Alfred Jarry's play, 'Ubu Roi', which was first staged in Paris in 1896. One of a suite of eight etchings by the artist dealing with this despot, it is really a work about guilt, conscience and conflict with the self - about Ubu atoning for his sins and excesses.
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Willie Bester
Sipho Ndlovu
Johannes Maswanganyi
Johannes Maswanganyi's 'Perfect Paradise' is just one of the many works in which trees feature.
Maswanganyi's captivating and uplifting sculpture shows a man stepping through, and literally reaching out to, a forest of trees with birds; it tells of a rapport and communion with nature.
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Cecil Skotnes and Hamilton Budaza
'Freedom', a collaborative work by Cecil Skotnes and Hamilton Budaza, is a mediation between past and present, between apartheid and democracy.
Made by two artists from vastly different backgrounds, it comprises seven carved and coloured wood panels. The central panel showing a figure reaching for the sky, partly in praise and partly in aspiration, is by Skotnes; the rest is by Budaza. It is one of the collection's most confident, optimistic and commanding pieces.
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Walter Oltmann
Mrs Jane Nkata and Billy Makhubele
'Day of Freedom', by Jane Nkata and Billy Makhubele, is an example of art that nurtures and enriches. This large beadwork, a colourful and vibrant celebration, depicts Nelson Mandela casting his vote in South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994.]
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Joseph Ndlovu
History of the art collection
Almost as remarkable as the scope of the collection is the manner in which it was gathered. The art was the passion of one of the judges of the Court itself - Justice Albie Sachs. And the artworks were not the fruits of a large budget: they were donations from artists, galleries and patrons of the arts.
The project stretches back to 1994. Sachs was appointed - with Justice Yvonne Mokgoro - to take charge of decor when the Court was still in its old building.
It took Sachs nearly 10 years but, as he is fond of saying, the collection assembled itself. He also donated several of his own pieces. Although he acquired several works abroad, most are by local artists.
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