(One of Franco
Frescura's anti-apartheid works. Photo courtesy of gallery)
FRANCO'S GREATEST
HITS! The Graphic Art of Franco Frescura will be opening at The Phansi Museum
on October 6, 2018, at Phansi Museum at 10h00. All are welcome and entry
is free.
The exhibition will feature the political graphics of Franco Frescura,
mostly drawn in the 1970s and published in the student press, the Council of
Churches, and SPROCAS.
The exhibition will be introduced by Lesley Frescura, Franco’s wife and
sometime uncredited collaborator. Lesley was also formerly involved in human
rights through her work with Amnesty International South Africa, the Black Sash
Eastern Cape, the Human Rights Trust in Port Elizabeth, and the Lawyers for
Human Rights in Pretoria.
Over the past 20 years, the role of white activists in the struggle
against apartheid has been largely overlooked by modern historians. Because of
the secretive nature of their work, many of its details are either unrecorded
or have been lost to State censorship, and the contributions of such people as
Neville and Jenny Curtis, Horst Kleinschmidt, Neil Aggett and David Webster
have not been fully documented.
Drawings, on the other hand, are hard documents that record many of the
ideas, actions and events of that era which the Apartheid police failed to
obliterate and the bluster of politicians has pointedly ignored. Although the
drawings in this exhibition are the work of one person, behind him stand many
members of a non-racial South African community that included students, trade
unions, women’s groups, academia, church groups, development professionals and
human rights NGOs, together with their families, friends and supporters.
Although Franco eventually joined the ANC underground in the early
1980s, his work in the field of rural indigenous architecture also continued to
undermine the precepts of a racist, bigoted patriarchy whose minority rule ran
counter to all ideals of a South African democracy. It was through his graphics
that he was able to demonstrate how it is possible to oppose an all-powerful
military-industrial establishment without resorting to violent action. These
drawings thus stand as a visual testimony of the struggle against apartheid ran
that deep within the communities in South Africa and who sacrificed much in its
opposition.
The exhibition runs from October 6 to 20, 2018. Phansi
Museum is situated at 500 Esther Roberts Road, Glenwood, in Durban. Contact Fran Saunders on 031 206 2889 or
email admin@phansi.com or visit www.phansi.com
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