This exhibition at The High Museum in Atlanta marks the first major museum showcase in the United States for the renowned South African artist Ezrom Legae (1938–1999). Following the establishment of apartheid, many South African artists confronted the associated oppression and bodily violence by reinterpreting the human figure as animal forms or through abstraction. This exhibition highlights Legae’s unique bestial compositions, featuring over thirty drawings of distorted and tormented creatures. Each piece serves as an imaginative study, articulating the artist’s political consciousness.
The exhibition spans drawings created from 1967 to 1996, with an emphasis on the pivotal 1970s and 1990s—critical periods in South African political history. During the intense unrest and anti-apartheid protests of the 1970s, exemplified by the Soweto uprisings, many activists and civilians suffered increased violence, exile, and imprisonment without trial, including solitary confinement. This tumultuous time is recognized as Legae’s most prolific era, during which he created pencil, ink, and charcoal depictions of animals that served as covert representations of apartheid’s figures and their impact.
After a significant hiatus, Legae resurfaced in the 1990s amid South Africa’s political transition, producing drawings that addressed the end of apartheid while grappling with ongoing issues of racism and poverty. Legae’s beasts exemplify how artists employ coded visual languages to resist and endure through tyranny.
