{"id":16176,"date":"2026-01-11T00:16:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T00:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/16176\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T00:16:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T00:16:48","slug":"south-africa-cancels-venice-biennale-gaza-artwork-by-gabrielle-goliath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/16176\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa Cancels Venice Biennale Gaza Artwork by Gabrielle Goliath"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSouth Africa selected a Gabrielle Goliath<\/a> work about Gaza for its Venice Biennale<\/a> pavilion, then rescinded the decision amid concerns that the work was \u201cpolarizing,\u201d according to a report by the Daily Maverick, a South African publication.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe decision to pull the pavilion was reportedly made by the culture ministry on January 2, just eight days before nations must finalize their Venice Biennale pavilions. In an unusual move, the South African Pavilion\u2019s selection committee then issued a statement of its own, saying that it disagreed with the cultural ministry decision.<\/p>\n

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\n\tGoliath, a South African artist who figured in the main exhibition of the 2024 Venice Biennale, was set to exhibit a work from her ongoing \u201cElegy\u201d series, which the artist describes as an \u201congoing labour of remembrance, repair and black feminist love\u201d on her website. The series was begun in 2015 as a performance about sexual assault and femicide, both in South Africa and outside it, and it has since been expanded to include a video installation.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to the Daily Maverick<\/a>, Goliath was going to address Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, a topic she also broached in a video installation currently on view at her solo show at MoMA PS1 in New York. The new \u201cElegy\u201d work was set to explore the killings of women and queer people in South Africa, as well as the killings of women in Namibia by German forces during a genocide in the early 20th century, but it was one section in particular that reportedly raised concern at the culture ministry. That section was to feature words by the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed, along with her son, during an Israeli airstrike in October 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a letter to the pavilion\u2019s organizers, Gayton McKenzie, the South African culture minister, reportedly sought for this section to be changed in late December, noting that he had the power to cancel the country\u2019s participation in the Biennale. McKenzie claimed that the work was \u201chighly divisive in nature and relates to an ongoing international conflict that is widely polarising.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs an artist, I am concerned with revealing and refusing conditions that make violence possible, permissible and terrifyingly \u2018ordinary,’\u201d Goliath told the Daily Maverick. \u201cWhose lives are available to be displaced, raped, killed, disavowed?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe added, \u201cI have said it many times: my work is not\u00a0about\u00a0violence, but rather foregrounds practices of mourning, survival and repair, within and despite this normative disregard. At a moment in which sustaining hope is a political imperative, I think it is all the more crucial to emphasise my work as\u00a0life-work rather than\u00a0death-work, and as rooted in a decolonial black feminist project of care and radical love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Thursday, the selection committee called McKenzie\u2019s request a form of \u201ccensorship.\u201d The committee\u2019s statement<\/a>, published by the South African art publication ArtThrob, said that the cancelation highlights larger problems with the pavilion\u2019s organization.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe cancellation of an independent and transparent curatorial process is deeply troubling, particularly in light of the Pavilion\u2019s long history of non-transparency and mismanagement,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWe therefore reject, without reservation, any effort to coerce artists or curators into altering artistic statements to serve political narratives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe committee also said that Goliath\u2019s work spoke appropriately to the theme of this Biennale, which is curated by Koyo Kouoh, who directed Cape Town\u2019s Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art when she died midway through the exhibition\u2019s making last year. \u201cThe proposed work recognises and mourns the tragic loss of innocent lives, including Palestinian women and children,\u201d the committee said.\u00a0\u201cElegy\u2019s understated yet powerful engagement with grief speaks to Kouoh\u2019s emphasis on practices that address historical and ongoing forms of violence with sensitivity, responsibility, and emotional depth, representing South Africa with a courageous and challenging project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to the Daily Maverick, McKenzie denied that he questioned the \u201cvalidity or otherwise of international findings regarding Gaza.\u201d Instead, he attributed his decision to his belief that the South African Pavilion was \u201cmeant to showcase South African artistic expression rooted in South African experience.\u201d He rejected the allegation that he censored Goliath.<\/p>\n

\n\tGoliath\u2019s studio told ARTnews that the artist and curator Ingrid Masondo had been unanimously selected for the pavilion. \u201cWe dare to think and dream the world differently,\u201d they said in an email.<\/p>\n

\n\tARTnews has reached out to the South African culture ministry for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe decision has already generated scrutiny from artists such as Candice Breitz, a South African filmmaker whose work faced pushback in Germany because she made statements in support of Palestine on social media. On Instagram<\/a>, Breitz called the Goliath decision \u201can astonishing clampdown on freedom of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is not the first time a pavilion for the 2026 Venice Biennale has faced controversy over its artist\u2019s beliefs on Israel, Gaza, and related matters. Last year, Australia revoked its selection of Khaled Sabsabi after conservative publications in the country questioned the meaning of a past work featuring a Hezbollah leader. Amid an international outcry, Sabsabi was ultimately reinstated as Australia\u2019s representative.<\/p>\n