Gabrielle Goliath’s Canceled South Africa Pavilion Opens at Venice Church

The South African pavilion in Giardini will remain empty during this year’s Venice Biennale, with Culture Secretary Gayton McKenzie deciding to scrap a planned pavilion by artist Gabrielle Goliath as “extremely controversial”. But while the building will remain closed, Biennale attendees can see the planned installation at St. Anthony’s Church, a half-mile away. This move appears even stronger.

Inside this 12th-century church, Goliath arranged several recurring videos elegyher ongoing performance series pays homage to the victims of atrocities in South Africa and beyond, including the killings of queer people and women, as well as the German-led genocide in colonial Namibia in the early 1900s. Although version elegy Concerns about the killing of South African women and the Herero and Nama genocides appear as single- and dual-channel works, with a new version mourning Gaza poet Hiba Abu Nada (killed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023) taking center stage. Abu Nada is commemorated along with other murdered Palestinians in this work, which is located on five screens in the center of the nave.

The voices of the Goliath women rang out from the church speakers, singing note after note in mourning for the dead. Sometimes the sounds merge into a unified whole, and other times they diverge, with one singer pausing to take a breath while another begins to mourn. The solemnity of the space, and the juxtaposition of black and brown bodies beneath the idealized white Christian bodies in church murals, clarify the series’ interventions.

While suspicions have yet to be confirmed that McKenzie pulled the piece because of its Palestinian content, Goliath didn’t mince words at the exhibition’s opening on Monday.

“If you read the letter from the minister – the first threatening letter I received from December last year – he made it very clear that content dealing with femicide in South Africa and the Owaherero and Nama genocides was acceptable,” she told art news. “But you need to eliminate aspects that involve Palestinian life.”

That the exhibition was canceled simply to mourn and commemorate Palestinians—the new works differ little from past ones except for their size—speaks to the unusual state of Palestinian life in public discourse and the art world.

“For 10 years, I’ve been trying to solve the core problems of my work,” Goliath said. “At the heart of the work is: Whose lives have value? Are they worthy of being understood as lives worth loving and worth grieving?”

In the months since its cancellation in January, Goliath has been mulling over what is considered “acceptable” content about femicide, rather than what Palestinian deaths mean. “when [McKenzie] “You can do this,” she said, explaining that she meant that femicide in South Africa – which President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a “national crisis” in November – is one that the government does not feel responsible for, despite “paying lip service” to ending it. She said the prevalence of “gendered, racialized and sexualized violence” made it “permissible”.

Yet Palestinian life still seems politically charged and worthy of mourning, even for South Africa, which is suing Israel for genocide at the International Court of Justice. Goliath said her cancellation was not unique. However, the level of public support she has enjoyed since has been.

“This level of cancellation and censorship happens quietly every day,” Goliath said. “I’ve been lucky enough to have the outpouring of support – the unity of these incredible organizations. Bertha [Foundation] Funding projects that cannot be funded and then having brave spaces like Ibraaz and ICA Milano in London say, “We have a home for you.” That’s no small thing. To step up in this moment in this moment is quite profound. “

The Patriarchate of Venice and Representative of Cultural Heritage and Ecclesiastical Architecture Don Gianmatteo Caputo also came forward, meeting Goliath and offering St. Anthony’s Church after a meeting was arranged by Björn Geldhof, director of the Pinchuk Art Center in Kiev.

“I admit, I’m scared. But I say to them: It’s very important that you know what’s going on – the cancellations, the content of the piece – and that you’re happy that we can keep that content in your space,” Goliath said. “They responded with an open mind.”

On Thursday, Goliath will take elegy Another step forward with the launch of the project elegiac readera collection of poetry published by Ibraz Press, includes the poet’s responses to the situation in Gaza, the genocide in Namibia, femicide in South Africa, and atrocities and conflicts in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Lebanon, and elsewhere. There will be a public reading of Goliath, which anyone in Venice can sign up to read, creating a new collective act of mourning that echoes the work.

“I’ve spoken to a lot of people who are in such a precarious position at this moment. Their funding has been withdrawn, they’ve lost their jobs, their visas have been revoked,” she said. “I think it’s going to be a very profound gathering because it’s asking other people to come, make their voices heard, make their presence felt.”