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Cape Town - An exhibition at the National Art Museum in Cape Town, titled Fuck White People, was slammed by the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) on Friday.
The exhibition was created by artist Dean Hutton, who is white.
"The responsible officials at the museum will have to account as to whether they would hold an exhibition with a reversed racial message," FF Plus leader Dr Pieter Groenewald said in a statement.
He said that the timing of the exhibition was unfortunate.
"In times where racial relations are extremely sensitive, and where people who are guilty of making racist comments are severely punished by courts, the exhibition is short-sighted, and it is experienced by many people as inflammatory," he said.
Groenewald called for the exhibition to be removed.
"It is offensive and causes friction and should be removed immediately," he said.
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Meant to be provocative
Groenewald questioned whether the museum would display art from a different perspective.
"I wonder, for example, if they would display something about the brutality of farm murders," Groenewald told News24.
The curators at the National Art Gallery did not respond to phone calls from News24.
In the description of the artwork in the museum, Hutton said the installation was meant to provoke white people.
"White people made racism and made sure it is deeply embedded in our social systems, laws, economies, institutions and individuals. So this provocation is here to make you feel that 'white pain'," Hutton’s description of the artwork reads.
"Earlier this year, I photographed a student Zama Mthunzi wearing a T-shirt with the words 'fuck white people' smeared in black paint. He was threatened with expulsion and a case at the human rights commission. None of the complaints said anything about the front of the T-shirt which read 'black pain is shit'," Hutton said.
Hutton told News24 later that the exhibition would open white people’s eyes to indoctrination.
“I am sure that many, and in particular the young people in your communities, have begun to wake from the indoctrination of white supremacy and are ready to learn to fuck the white in them too,” Hutton said.
According to Hutton, reverse racism does not exist.
“I would like to remind the good doctor that the reverse of racism is love, and celebration of difference. 'Reverse Racism' is a fantasy of white people who are keen to experience the kinds of oppression that they have used against indigenous people of this country,” Hutton said.
Social media reaction
On the FF Plus Facebook page, commentators expressed their frustration with the artwork.
"Another one who would rather enjoy staying in a hut killing bucks for food, take away the white people, see how much Zimbabwe means without those white farmers, lol they living the good life now," Lourens Myburgh commented.
"Most likely an idiot just like his president," Myburg later said.
Jessica Nel posted that a 10-year-old had more debating ability than Hutton.
"My boy of ten years old has more integrity and debating-ability than this artistic person. Sticks and stones (and petrol bombs) may break my bones, but the words of an empty tin cannot hurt me," Nel said.
