The artist Gabrielle Goliath, whose South Africa Pavilion exhibition at the 2026 Venice Biennale was cancelled by the South Africa Ministry for Sport, Arts and Culture, will now show the planned work, Elegy, independently of the Biennale at Chiesa di Sant’Antonin in Castello, Venice.
The exhibition will open on Tuesday 5 May through Friday 31 July 2026, then move to Ibraaz in London, from October 2026.
‘Convened in this exhibition is a gathering space, a sacred chamber in which to sound a reparative work of loving and longing,’ Goliath said in a statement. ‘We hold a note – a black femme chorus – and in the face of cancellation, threat, and incommensurable losses, dare to think and dream the world differently.’
Goliath’s work references Israel’s war on Palestine from her series Elegy, and was to be curated by Ingrid Masondo. The selection was cancelled by South Africa’s Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie, who requested several changes to the work, which Goliath refused.
In a bid to overturn the cancellation, Goliath and Masondo said that the minister lacked the contractual authority and that the decision infringed her constitutional right to freedom of speech.
Following a hearing on 11 February, judge Mamokolo Kubushi of the country’s North Gauteng High Court rejected the bid. Kubushi did not provide reasons for her ruling.
The South African pavilion will stand empty.
