"Goliath and the curator Ingrid Masondo were to present a new iteration of the three-part, video-based project Elegy -a project begun in 2015 that has centred on femicide and the murder of LGBTQI+ people in South Africa. The version planned for the Biennale also addressed violence against women in Namibia and Gaza, and it was the new Gaza-related section that caused the controversy."
"On 22 December, Gayton McKenzie-South Africa's right-wing sport, arts and culture minister-wrote a letter to the organising committee in which he described the Gaza-related suite, which focused on the death of Hiba Abu Nada, a Palestinian poet who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023, as "highly divisive in nature". McKenzie requested that the section was changed; when Goliath declined, the minister cancelled her plans, on 2 January."
"On Wednesday 18 February Judge Mamoloko Kubushi-of South Africa's high court-dismissed Goliath and Masondo's urgent application to overturn the cancellation of the pavilion. Judge Kubushi gave no reasons for her ruling, the judgement simply reading: "Having read the papers filed of record, heard counsel and considered the matter, it is ordered that: the application is dismissed." Goliath told The Art Newspaper that her team was appealing the ruling."
South Africa will not mount a government-backed exhibition in its 2026 Venice Biennale pavilion after the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture cancelled Gabrielle Goliath's planned project. Gabrielle Goliath and curator Ingrid Masondo planned a new iteration of Elegy, a three-part video project addressing femicide and the murders of LGBTQI+ people; the Biennale version also addressed violence against women in Namibia and Gaza. Minister Gayton McKenzie described the Gaza-related suite as "highly divisive in nature" and requested changes; when Goliath declined, he cancelled the pavilion contribution on 2 January. The high court dismissed Goliath and Masondo's urgent application to overturn the cancellation; an appeal is under way. DSAC has restarted Biennale planning.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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