HALF ART
CHRIS THURMAN: Zille’s nostalgia is no basis for a political programme
"Someone in Helen Zille’s position ... must be called out every time she makes some lazy, sniping comment about race in SA"
She’s been doing a bit of international travel in 2017. In March, as we all know, she was in Singapore. I was nonetheless surprised to espy Western Cape Premier Helen Zille in the small Belgian village of Damme this week; had she not just returned to Cape Town after a trade visit to Ghana? Still, there she was — or so I thought — outside the decaying walls of an old Flemish church, caught in a moment of precarious balance on a large ball. Okay, I’ll admit, I knew it wasn’t her. What caught my eye was a sculptural installation in an open-air exhibition by Alain Cool. Yet I felt that I recognised an allegorical Helen Zille when I saw the title: De man die de tijd stil wil zetten (The man who wants to stop time). The figure in the work is a kind of inverse Atlas — as if, instead of holding the world on his shoulders, he is trying to stand on it, presumably to keep the globe from turning. But the earth spins relentlessly on. Those who attempt to halt it risk falling off. Cool’s sculptur...
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