A chunk of efficiency artwork that was blocked from representing South Africa on the upcoming Venice Biennale over its supposedly “highly divisive” tribute to a Palestinian poet will go on show on the world’s largest artwork exhibition in any case.
South African artist Gabrielle Goliath’s mission, Elegy, will be shown for 3 months from 4 May as a video installation on the Chiesa di Sant’Antonin church within the Castello district, a venue within the neighborhood of the main web site that isn’t a part of the Biennale.
The South African pavilion, in the meantime, will stay empty because the nation’s authorities declined to nominate a substitute for the present that was abruptly cancelled in January.
Goliath stated exhibiting her work in Venice was very important as a result of its cancellation had set “a dangerous precedent”, coming “only as a result of [South African] culture minister McKenzie taking exception to certain aspects of the work and my refusal to change that”.
Made as a ritual of mourning for ladies killed in acts of sexualised or racialised violence, Elegy was first conceived in 2015 to commemorate murdered South African scholar Ipeleng Christine Moholane.
The efficiency itself is non-verbal: the screens present seven operatically educated feminine performers rising from a black background and holding a single excessive notice for so long as they’ll, earlier than retreating and being changed by one other singer.
The efficiency on show in Venice additionally commemorates two murdered Nama girls displaced and killed by German colonial forces within the early twentieth century, in addition to the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed aged 32 in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza, in October 2023.
It is accompanied by a ghazal – an historical Arabic type of ode – that pays tribute to Abu Nada’s poem I Grant You Refuge, which she wrote 10 days earlier than her dying.
The struggle in Gaza isn’t additional thematised within the art work itself. Only a curatorial assertion Goliath has launched references “a spectre of genocide” and talks about “thousands of women, children and civilians killed in Gaza”.
South Africa’s tradition minister Gayton McKenzie stated in a letter dated 22 December 2025 that the subject material of the artist’s efficiency “is known to be highly divisive in nature and is related to an ongoing international conflict that is widely polarising”.
A former businessman and founding father of the rightwing Patriotic Alliance (PA), McKenzie was appointed tradition minister in 2024, when PA joined an ANC-led authorities of nationwide unity.
South Africa’s earlier authorities in 2023 launched a lawsuit accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, however McKenzie has continued to communicate in assist of the Israeli state, telling the Daily Maverick newspaper “there is no genocide happening there”.
“It wasn’t the specifics of the language that have made the work ‘divisive and polarising’, but the fact that it is directed towards grieving Palestinian lives,” Goliath stated.
Last month, the artist failed in an attempt to overturn the government’s cancellation of her pavilion, with a excessive courtroom decide dismissing her software simply hours earlier than the Bienniale’s submission deadline.
Artists appearing in assist of Goliath and her curator Ingrid Masondo are persevering with to attraction in opposition to the choice and the actual fact the decide ordered them to pay the courtroom’s prices. “This is highly irregular and unheard of, particularly within the civic case,” stated Goliath.
Opening on 9 May, the Biennale’s main exhibition options works chosen by a central curator, whereas governments organise nationwide exhibition pavilions.
Swiss-Cameroonian curator Koyo Kouoh, who was to change into the primary African girl to head up the Biennale, died suddenly final May. Entitled “In Minor Keys”, her main exhibition is being realised by a staff of collaborators she met and briefed a month earlier than her dying.
In the official part of the 61st version of the Biennale, 111 artists will present works to signify 99 taking part nations this 12 months, up from 84 in 2024.
Goliath’s present at Chiesa di Sant’Antonin is being staged in partnership with London arts centre Ibraaz, which is able to host Elegy in October.
