Ides of March

Johannes Phokela (b. 1966, Benoni, South Africa) is and artist who lives and works in Johannesburg and London.
While Phokela’s work is, at first glance, an irreverent representation of Western art, it is the cultural and political consumption of pictures that interests him most. He is himself a consumer of imagery, drawing from the iconic works of the European masters – Caravaggio, De Gheyn, Hogarth, Rubens, and so forth. He fuses them together with imagery found relating to current global affairs; that is, those found in magazines and on the Internet.
Phokela’s art, which encompasses painting, sculpture, and drawing, is animated by a wicked sense of humour, technical virtuosity, and an ability to draw together a number of associations within a single work.
Pantomime Mortal Act (2016), a painting produced for EVA 2016, evokes the turbulent political history of the Republic of Ireland. The painting broadly references the resilience of the Irish nation against regional domination, starting with the reign of Elizabeth I to that of William of Orange. While religious reformations engulfed Europe with political turmoil, a quest for colonial expansion shifted from being the aspirations of the ruling elite to that of those who desperately needed to escape the limitations of life within a feudalist Europe. And in particular, the accession of William of Orange, which changed the course of history in countries such as the United States, Australia, South Africa, and others.
The Ides of March (2015) is part of a series of work based on the execution of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico in 1867. Édouard Manet’s version at the National Gallery in London was the inspiration behind Phokela’s first reinterpretation of the execution. Ides of March is the tenth reworking of the painting, but in it Phokela introduces the assassination – a precursor to World War I – of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, who was, surprisingly, the nephew of Maximilian. The rendition of the execution is depicted in an opera-like composition.