LGBTI artist aims to bring demonised 'masculine other' into intimate focus

The ‘rooftop murders’ of gay men in Syria was a visceral pull to ‘make good’ these violated lives, writes Clive van den Berg

In 2014 I received an e-mail which showed the killings of two men in Syria. They were young men dressed casually as if for the unremarkable activities of an ordinary day, except that they were being led by other men.

They were blindfolded and their hands were tied behind their backs. The first image showed them in a street, then being led up a flight of stairs - and then they were on the top of a flat-roofed building.

We see them standing at the edge, surrounded by a group of men. The next images showed these men in mid fall. They had been pitched over the parapet.

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This was my first encounter with the "rooftop killings". Accused by Islamic State of being gay, the men are pitched onto the streets below where crowds of men of all ages wait with piles of stones.

The killers photograph and video these murders which are published by IS and form part of a visualised ideology skilfully disseminated through their own and other publications.

As a gay man, watching these killings evoked the dread that exists despite the protections increasingly legislated for LGBTI people - particularly pertinent in countries like South Africa where society has yet to catch up with the progressive gender and sexuality laws.

As an artist, I felt a visceral pull to "make good" these violated lives, but how to realise this redemptive impulse for which direct action was not an option?

What struck me from watching these killings was the dehumanising anonymity forced on these men, whose names remain unknown and whose faces are obscured from the public. I took to my carving tools, chiselling away at a piece of wood to make a human form from a flat, blurred image - a process that enabled a physical and symbolic enactment of empathy.

Carving these sculptures was important to gain some form of intimacy with the "nameless" victims, but also to consider the seemingly abominable men who throw stones at these victims. I asked myself, in a society of coercive masculinity, is picking up the first stone an act of protection for some of these men? Exhibiting the "wrong" kind of masculinity can have fatal consequences, after all.

Yet, in a world where public outcry at the destruction of ruins in Palmyra echoes louder than revulsion at the systematic "eradication" of homosexuality in a society, I felt a need to expose homophobic violence as it manifests in societal indifference.

Indeed, there has been a rush of offers to restore the ruins but little urgency to mark these murders of gay men. My "reparative" action has been to accord these deaths a caring eye, mine initially and then those of viewers who see the works.

block_quotes_start In this current global climate when homophobia is re-entering public discourse and behaviour with increasing frequency, art must try to nuance perceptions of gender and sexuality block_quotes_end

Through my work, I hope to bring people closer to these victims to counter the blatant homophobia ripping through societies, not only in Syria and Iraq but also on the African continent and in Russia, and with the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to sign the anti-LGBTI "First Amendment Defence Act", also now in the US.

Here in South Africa, where prejudice towards "alternative masculinities" remains rife, race is rightly the dominant narrative of our time, but there are additional prisms through which we can understand who we are and what we need to do to become a caring and responsible society.

The focal point of my new body of work is a 3.5m-high wooden sculpture, titled A Pile of Stones, in which I hope to command an active gaze through intricately "re-enacted" moments from these rooftop executions.

The desire propelling the construction of this towering, immersive work is to invert the spectacle of these killings and counter the paralysing, voyeuristic act of looking that IS engenders and exploits.

In this current global climate when homophobia is re-entering public discourse and behaviour with increasing frequency, art must try to nuance perceptions of gender and sexuality.

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Bringing the demonised "masculine other" into intimate focus has been my aim.

A Pile of Stones launched at the Goodman Gallery on Thursday. The exhibition - consisting of sculptures and paintings - runs until February 15.

All works form part of a continuing series, collectively titled Men Loving, which critically explores love between men in situations of censure.

Clive van den Berg is an artist, living and working in Johannesburg, whose core projects include the exhibition design at Freedom Park, the museums at Constitution Hill and Mandela Foundation exhibitions

He will give a free guided tour of the exhibition at 11am on Saturday