{"id":645983,"date":"2026-10-14T08:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T08:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/645983\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T08:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T08:48:08","slug":"artist-gabrielle-goliath-brings-cancelled-venice-biennale-work-to-london-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/645983\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Gabrielle Goliath brings cancelled Venice Biennale work to London – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gabrielle Goliath\u2019s Elegy, the censored work that was first meant to be exhibited in the South African pavilion<\/a> at this year\u2019s Venice Biennale, has gone on show in London<\/a> at the private foundation Ibraaz (until 17 January 2027).<\/p>\n

Goliath\u2019s work addresses femicide and the murder of LGBTQ+ people in South Africa, and is part of a series that the artist has been working on in performance and video for more than a decade. In the piece, a succession of women stand to sing one mournful note. As each woman\u2019s breath runs out, another steps in to take her place.<\/p>\n

Goliath\u2019s version for the biennial addressed rape culture in South Africa; the Herero and Nama genocide in Namibia in the early part of the 20th century; and the death of Hiba Abu Nada, a Palestinian poet who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023.<\/p>\n

However, in January Gayton McKenzie, South Africa\u2019s sport, arts and culture minister, cancelled Goliath\u2019s participation in the pavilion, having called the inclusion of the Abu Nada commemoration \u201cdivisive\u201d.<\/p>\n

In response, Ibraaz and the social justice charity the Bertha Foundation collaborated to show the work at the off-site venue of the Chiesa di Sant\u2019Antonin in Venice\u2014where it ran from the biennial\u2019s opening in May until the end of July\u2014and now at Ibraaz\u2019s main site in London.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Ibraaz opened last October, we had this coinage as a brave space for art, culture and ideas,\u201d says Hammad Nasar, Ibraaz\u2019s director of programmes and content. \u201cWell, what does that look like, and what does that mean? Brave does not mean: let\u2019s poke you in the eye with a sharp stick. Brave means paying attention to whose voices need to be heard.\u201d Ibraaz has shown artists and works that other institutions have shied away from, particularly on politically sensitive subjects such as Palestine and Islamophobia, Nasar says.<\/p>\n

Goliath\u2019s Elegy opens alongside the Lebanese-American artist Joe Namy\u2019s Cosmic Breath<\/a> (2023\/26), a sound installation comprised of ten megaphones that play the adhan, or call to prayer. It was commissioned by the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah in 2023 but has not been shown since, despite attempts to place it at other institutions, The Art Newspaper understands.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no shortage of artworks that are being censored right now,\u201d Nasar adds. \u201cOur goal is not to simply show what\u2019s been censored\u2014but we\u2019re also not joining the queue to show safe or same-old work. We are thinking about what work we want to share with people, what work people are not getting access to, and what\u2019s not getting funded.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gabrielle Goliath\u2019s Elegy, the censored work that was first meant to be exhibited in the South African pavilion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5470,146,290582,85,46,9517,45876],"class_list":["post-645983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-censorship","tag-entertainment","tag-frieze-london-2026","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-south-africa","tag-venice-biennale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}