Description
Assembly of icons led by Madiba”, is both a celebration and a confrontation — a dialogue between icons, movements,
and memories.
At its heart stands Nelson Mandela, rendered in the instantly recognizable style of the Barack Obama “HOPE” poster by Shepard Fairey. But here,
Mandela becomes not just a symbol of political aspiration — he becomes the Superman of freedom, surrounded by visual elements that reflect the complexity of hope in our time.
The word HOPE, borrowed directly from Robert Indiana’s iconic typographic sculpture, anchors the composition in idealism — but also in bold, geometric clarity. Yet hope here is not static. It is confronted, bent, reshaped — like the knotted revolver, originally sculpted by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd as a call for nonviolence after the death of John Lennon. The version I present — painted sky-blue with clouds — is Yoko Ono’s
reinterpretation, transforming the weapon not only into a statement of peace but a dreamlike artifact of protest.
Beneath the revolver, Strawberries nod to “Strawberry Fields Forever”, Lennon’s poetic ode to memory and surreal escape — a reminder that political struggle, too, exists in the realms of emotion and myth. The strawberry is not just sweetness — it is memory, longing, and loss.
The leopard print in the background invokes Mandela’s rural Xhosa heritage — a subtle but potent call to his beginnings, to ancestral power, and to
the contradictions between modern iconography and tribal identity.
In contrast, Superman — chain-breaking, fist-raised — represents a universal archetype of liberation. In contrast, Superman — chain-breaking, fist-raised — represents a universal archetype of liberation. Perhaps he is Mandela. Perhaps he is the myth we need in every era. Or perhaps he is simply how the world saw him: a superhuman force who rewrote the rules of power with grace and conviction.
Then comes the banana — sprayed casually, almost absurdly, across the sky like a divine prank. It’s the unmistakable signature of Thomas Baumgärtel, the “banana sprayer” whose interventions in public space defy explanation and celebrate disruption. Its randomness is the point. It reminds us that not everything fits neatly into narrative — that art, like history, has its anarchic bursts.
This composition is not linear. It is not quiet. It is Pop — with memory. Propaganda — with poetry. Protest — with playfulness.
It is a tribute to Madiba, yes. But it is also a tribute to the power of symbols, to the strange collision of cultural fragments that somehow speak truth — not through realism, but through resonance.
