The Black Christ

Official Selection: Encounters International Film Festival (2016)

In 1962, a young South African artist, Ronald Harrison, passionately sought
a way to contribute to the struggle for political freedom by leveraging his
passion for art. Consequently, he produced a painting destined to become
world renowned as the ‘Black Christ.’ The painting’s metaphoric depiction of
the suffering of the various oppressed black racial groups during apartheid is
ingenious. To this end, the painting depicts a Christ-like crucified figure being
tormented by two centurions. The face of the crucified man is that of Chief
Albert Luthuli, the President of the ANC at the time and the first African
recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize (1961). The faces of the two ‘centurions’ are
that of Hendrik Verwoerd, then Prime Minister of South Africa and one of the
main architects of apartheid, and B.J. Voster, Verwoerd’s ruthless Minister of
Justice and Police. The unveiling of the painting caused a furore, as it
instantly became a powerful symbol of defiance against the prevailing harsh
and unjust political system in the country. At the same time various sects of
the white ruling class interpreted the painting as both blasphemous and
subversive, since it managed to foreground the social paradox of a racist state
purporting to hold Christian values. As a result, the apartheid authorities
banned the work from any public exhibition, and attempted to seize and
destroy the canvass. But a London based anti-apartheid organization,
Defence and Aid, smuggled it out of South Africa in 1962, where for the
following six years the painting travelled throughout Europe; during that
period, it is claimed to have raised hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling
for the legal and financial aid of political prisoners and their families in South
Africa. After its European tour the painting vanished and Harrison lost all
contact with his creation. Subsequent to the painting’s exile from South Africa
and Ronald Harrison’s personal meeting with Chief Luthuli, the South African
Security Police persistently harassed him. These arrests culminated in brutal
physical torture that affected him in very real ways, whilst he also endured
sadistic threats against his family. In the ensuing years his personal suffering
was exacerbated by the violent events unfolding in South Africa, his reluctant
separation from the Black Christ Painting and the uncertainty regarding the
painting’s whereabouts. But through unrelenting political pressure, the country
eventually changed – formal apartheid was dismantled; political organisations
fighting for liberation and democracy were unbanned; Nelson Mandela and
others political leaders were released; and in 1994 a joyous population
partook in the country’s first democratic elections. The search for the BLACK
CHRIST painting intensified, and in 1997, after a series of remarkably
coincidental events, the canvas re-surfaced in a London based house of a self
-exiled South African human rights lawyer, Julius Baker, who stored it safely
for the preceding 30 years. Amidst intense international and local media
coverage, the painting was returned to South Africa in 1997, bought by the
South African National Gallery in 1998, where it now rests– its work done, but
its influence and message as relevant as ever.

Black Christ Website: http://theblackchrist.co.za/