Black artists working under apartheid in South African didn’t have the luxury of being literal. Artists living under or observing extreme cruelty have always used animals to represent people.
Francisco Goya in Spain in the late 18th century. Picasso with the bombing of Guernica.
Ezrom Legae (1938–1999).
Not even the nerdiest of art nerds will know that name. The High Museum of Art in Atlanta hopes to change that, staging the South African’s first major museum exhibition in the United States, “Ezrom Legae: Beasts” through November 16, 2025.
After apartheid was established in 1948, many artists in South Africa contended with its corresponding oppression and bodily violence by presenting the human figure in animal form or abstracting it. For them, animals traditionally sacrificed, such as goats and chickens, served as allegorical figures for activists who endured sacrificial violence and suffering under apartheid. South Africa’s Indemnity Act of 1961 made it legal for police officers to commit acts of violence, to torture, or to kill in line of duty. Larger animals, such as bulls and contorted horse-like creatures, represented the autocratic government and agents of said violence.
