Strauss & co - 16 March 2015, Cape Town

618 Brett MURRAY south african 1 961- Conundrum executed in 2008 stainless steel 12 by 232,5 by 3cm R20 000–30 000 literature Ivor Powell. (2014) ‘The Perils of Celebrity’ in Brett Murray , Cape Town: Jacana. Page 26, illustrated in colour. It comes down to the meta-political imponderable. ‘To storm or to own the Bastille?’– as Murray asks in a metal text on the wall of the exhibition. This is the question that post-democratic history in South Africa poses. Brett Murray. (2009) Brett Murray: Crocodile Tears , exhibition catalogue, 5 February-28 February, Goodman Gallery. 619 Brett MURRAY south african 1 961- Rogue’s Gallery I executed in 2008 mild steel, acrylic and fool’s gold 102 by 78cm R40 000–60 000 literature Sean O’Toole. (2009) ‘Distinguishing the Bull from the Bullshit’ in Brett Murray: Crocodile Tears , (exhibition catalogue), Goodman Gallery: It could be a sympathetic portrait, although saying this I can’t be sure. I’m also not so sure what the sympathetically rendered subject at the centre of Brett Murray’s steel cutout work is. It could be a gorilla, or a chimpanzee, maybe even a gibbon, so ape it will have to be. This generic ape portrait, framed by a lavish growth of Rococo finery, crystallises in a single image the workings of this essay: lots of frilly adornment with some confusion about the ambiguous subject at the centre. 618 619 278