Passive Resistance

Passive Resistance was produced after Crouse won a competition held by the Creative Arts Foundation at the Civic Gallery in 1994. The work normally hangs in the foyer of the Nelson Mandela Theatre in Johannesburg.

In it, a vast tableau appears, structured similarly to the famous painting Liberty Leading the People (1830) by the French artist Eugène Delacroix, but in this case populated by prominent figures in the Johannesburg theatre scene. The painting is an homage to Delacroix, but it is also a political painting that depicts the role of artists and the theatre in the struggle against apartheid. 

Artwork courtesy of the Artist.