South African Court Rejects Gabrielle Goliath Bid, Upholds Cancelation Of ‘Divisive’ Exhibit

The artist condemned the decision, while fellow naysayers call it an act of censorship.

A South African high court has rejected a bid from famed artist Gabrielle Goliath to overturn the cancelation of her proposed exhibition.

The art display, titled Elegy, sought to represent South Africa at the Venice Biennale, an international cultural exhibition that takes place in the Italian city. The court decided to uphold the decision to scrap Goliath’s pavilion just hours before the exhibition’s submission deadline. Now, South Africa may not feature in the storied art showcase at all due to the court ruling, as reported by Art News.

Goliath’s work, originally selected by nonprofit Art Periodico, would have showcased the ingenuity of South Africa and its native artists. However, a national official, Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie, considered the work “highly divisive,” resulting in its canceled submission.

The piece covered an ongoing series that honors the victims of international and local atrocities. Elements of the work paid homage to the killings of queer people and women in South Africa and beyond, as well as a new alleged insertion honoring Abu Nada, a Palestinian poet killed during an Israeli airstrike in October 2023.

Goliath initially argued that McKenzie’s cancelation of her selection violated her freedom of expression, while also claiming that the government official lacked the proper authority to make such a call. In light of the blocked submission, Goliath expressed her concerns over the upheld decision, which will further shun the stories of these slain voices.

“As an artist, I am concerned with revealing and refusing conditions that make violence possible, permissible, and terrifyingly ‘ordinary.’ Whose lives are available to be displaced, raped, killed, disavowed?” she questioned.

On the other hand, McKenzie’s representative defended his stance, claiming that the culture minister felt deceived about what “Elegy” really entailed. He even dismantled the relationship with the nonprofit over the selection issue. He tried several attempts to cancel the submission, emphasizing how the art “relates to an ongoing international conflict that is widely polarizing,” a move the pavilion committee deemed an act of censorship.

Goliath has remained publicly against the decision, reiterating that her work does not seek to encourage violence, but to uphold a radical philosophy that honors the deceased.

“I have said it many times: my work is not about violence, 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 life-work rather than death-work, and as rooted in a decolonial Black feminist project of care and radical love.”