Artwork Under Fire: The Baholo Collection

The student protests that engulfed campus from March 2015 onward centred around the sculpture of Cecil John Rhodes, but expanded to include other artworks. Colonial-era portraits from Smuts and Fuller Hall, both upper campus residences, were added to a bonfire in the adjoining parking lot and set alight. Perhaps these artworks could be regarded as expected casualties in an escalating fracas that targeted the pervasive culture of ‘whiteness’ and Euro-centric cultural hegemony on campus. The portraits predominantly depicted former white male academics and could be viewed as reinforcing the perception of UCT as fostering a culture of exclusion. But the destruction of artworks by African artists and apartheid-era activists such as Richard Baholo and Molly Blackburn, which were also added to the bonfire, seemed to contradict the movement’s basic tenet and has generated much conjecture.