23 March 2019
Tribute and obituary
Eleftherios Apergis affectionately also known as Comrade Akis was born on 1 May 1943 in the port city of Piraeus in Greece. He passed away on 8 March 2019 at Edenvale Hospital in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng Province, after a protracted illness, cancer and arthritis.
Cde Akis married Mary Vassiliou (the late), Greek folk dance teacher and a renowned patron of arts and culture. He supported and funded most of May’s cultural endearments and school of Greek art and culture performance. Mary travelled extensively in Greece and brought to South Africa exclusive folk art-wear representing the diverse Greek art and culture. Cde Akis felt very proud of this achievement in the rare and special designs. He was not much acknowledged for his great contributions and achievements in this regard.
Cde Akis was a tenacious, uncompromising revolutionary left cadre, despite his achievements as an industrialist. He started a booming cane and furniture industry after working as a reputable chic designer for a bourgeois clientele.
Cde Akis designed and created furniture, ornaments, jewellery, sculptures, houses, restaurants, pottery, mosaic and broidery, night clubs and bars. He was a great collector of good artwork of any form, including increasingly from the Southern African region, particularly Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique.
Cde Akis owned an art gallery and was the first owner of an art gallery to defy the apartheid regime in the 1980s. He displayed artwork of African artists, which was prohibited by the apartheid regime. Cde Akis developed special relations with many artists. He had in-depth knowledge of different artwork and its meanings as revealed by the artists, most of whom he shared close relations and gave them huge support. He embraced South African art legends like Irma Stern.
Cde Akis cherished and called Alexis Preller the most accomplished of artist, more so of his anthropomorphic themes and his adaptability to various art forms, which reflected his own art character. His friend and art collaborator was Cecil Edwin Frans Skotness, the great art teacher of his revered friend Lucky Sibiya with whom he shared a special bond and mourned his death deeply. He was very fond of Cecil Skotness whom he called the greatest. He also loved his unquestionable commitment to the revolutionary spirit and ideals, which came through his art work too.
Overall, Cde Akis loved and was deeply influenced by the collaborative efforts of the group Amadlozi, made of the man he referred to as a genius Sydney Khumalo, the brainwave man behind the group with Cecil Skotnes, Giusseppe Cattaneo, Cecily Sash and Eduardo Villa. He liked very much the great Gerard Sekoto, George Milwa Pemba, Lucas Sithole who was a close friend who frequently visited him at his home and gallery. Cde felt sad that Sithole did not experience our democratic dispensation to immerse in his artistic explosion. He actually called him an explosion of an artist. He revered Lucas Sihlali, Peter Clarke, Walter Whall Battis, and Johannes Meintjies who immersed himself in Greek mythology drawings which resonated so well with him. Cde Akis shared special moments and at times in intense and rowdy discussions with some of these artists over a bottle. There are many artists he extolled, that a small paper does not allow to acknowledge but he loved and was impressed by their work
Cde Akis loathed the apartheid regime for denying the people the aesthetic beauty the free art world provided. He disliked what he characterised as the post-apartheid South Africa’s flagrant ignorance of public art. Cde Akis was deeply emotional and impressed by the recent visual art and design festival the Pretoria Cool Capital Biennale. Cde Akis enthused that each metro and other big cities and towns should have their own Biennale to promote public art and architecture. He lived the arts and was an accomplished one.
Cde Akis was part of the team that organised the South African protest art exhibition in Botswana in the 1980s in support of the liberation struggle and unhindered promotion of African artists whose work was not allowed in South African art galleries. His lasting thought was to transform most artwork into big mosaic and murals for public consumption in public buildings and spaces, the project the art “illiterate” never embraced.
Cde Akis wanted to turn his house into a training school for mosaic art development and was collaborating on the development of a theatre drama based on the brilliant researched and ground breaking book by Harris Dousemetzis with Gerry Loughran, The man who killed apartheid: The Life of Dimitri Tsafendas – the unsung hero against apartheid. He visited Tsafendas frequently in prison hospital and was one of a very few who attended his funeral. Cde Akis pledged to fund this theatre project which he specifically also wanted performed in the townships. He wanted to see Tsafendas properly honoured with a tombstone and official acknowledgements. We should proceed with this process to honour Dimitri Tsafendas.
Harris Dousemetzis visited Cde Akis four days before he passed on and they were great friends and collaborators.
As an exhibitionist, he constantly threw parties for good celebrations and networking with a wide range of people during the apartheid period. This attracted trouble from the apartheid security branch. Cde Akis’ house was not only frequented by African artists and activists alike but resembled the non-racial future of South Africa which irked the apartheid regime.
He linked with the liberation movement through Mozambique and worked closely with our General Secretary Cde Joe Slovo and others. His art gallery was a meeting point and exchange centre of coded messages, which he shared with Cde Slovo.
Cde Akis’ health deteriorated after a brutal attack that left him almost dead and miraculously recovered and hospitalised for months. He remained a dedicated revolutionary, a social businessman, broker and deal maker. He was full of great ideas to create more jobs, develop production and find tangible solutions to obstinate challenges that the resilient working class, whom he cherished to the end, is faced with.
The art world has lost a great companion and a moving art encyclopaedia. Society has lost a great historian and philanthropist, an inspirational social entrepreneur, a great poet and columnist.
Comrade Akis was a colossal intellectual particularly of Greek history.
Oom Akis is survived by his adopted son Stonko Seloane (Alexandros, named after Alexander the Great whom he liked so much), his sister and brother in Greece and Belgium respectively and the broader family of the Communist Party and the working class.
We lost an amazing father, a veteran in struggle, a great companion, revolutionary teacher, a true art teacher, you great Left-winger, Cde Akis
Hamba Kahle Mkhonto
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