Malcolm Morley began to make photorealist paintings in the sixties. He used brochures and postcards intended for tourists as a starting point, which depicted warships, luxury cruises, cabins, and carefree travellers. Although the number of his subjects increased over time, he stuck to the representation of the dream world of advertisements. Race Track (South Africa) is an emblematic work in his artistic career; on the one hand, it is the peak of his photorealist painting, and it marks his break with photorealism on the other. Morley re-paints a poster of a South African travel agency without changing it. South Africa as the seductive destination, and horse race track as the favourite place for pastime of the rich white people together are the symbol of the apartheid-era. The masterly painted picture seems almost neutral to the underlying political context. Morley was about to finish the painting, when he saw a movie about a left-wing politician’s assassination and its cover-up (Costa-Gavras: Z – Anatomy of a Political Assassination). Deeply affected by the movie, he drew a huge X across the work, as if to delegitimize Photorealism and its represented reality, the apartheid.
Krisztina Üveges
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