The artist Gabrielle Goliath and the curator Ingrid Masondo are pursuing urgent legal action against South Africa’s sport, arts and culture minister Gayton McKenzie, with the aim of overturning his decision to cancel their project for the country’s Venice Biennale pavilion.
A legal team for Goliath, her studio manager James Macdonald and Masondo—led by Adila Hassim—will be filing an application at the country’s high court in Pretoria by tomorrow (22 January), in which they will ask the court to declare McKenzie’s interference unconstitutional and to overturn his decision to terminate Goliath’s participation in the Venice Biennale.
“We have also insisted that the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) respond to the lawful selection decision of the Independent Curatorial Selection Committee, and take all necessary steps to ensure that the exhibition goes ahead as planned,” Goliath and her team said in a statement to The Art Newspaper.
Goliath and Masondo were selected to represent South Africa at the 2026 Venice Biennale on 6 December last year, by a five-person selection committee composed of imminent members of the country’s art community. The pair were to present a new iteration of Elegy—Goliath’s decade-long project that has centred on femicide and the murder of LGBTQI+ people in South Africa. The version in Venice was also due to address the Ovaherero and Nama genocide in Namibia in the early part of the 20th century, as well as the death of Hiba Abu Nada, a Palestinian poet who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023.
On 22 December, McKenzie—the leader of the right-wing Patriotic Alliance party—wrote a letter to the organising committee in which he described the Abu Nada-related suite as “highly divisive in nature” and said it “relates to an ongoing international conflict that is widely polarising”.
McKenzie then cancelled Goliath’s plans on 2 January, just eight days before the first deadline for countries to submit plans to the Biennale.
The artist Gabrielle Goliath and Ingrid Masondo, who had been selected to curate South Africa’s pavilion in Venice
Photo: ZUNIS
The legal action was set in motion with a letter of demand sent to McKenzie last Friday [16 January], “insisting that he immediately desist from any interference with our lawful participation at the Venice Biennale”.
McKenzie and the DSAC have not responded to numerous requests for comment.
In the statement the artist’s team added that: “A letter has also been sent to President Cyril Ramaphosa, alerting him to these demands and asking that he urgently intervene as head of the executive to whom Minister Gayton McKenzie reports.” A spokesperson for Ramaphosa told The Art Newspaper that the president had not yet seen the letter.
A pursuit of new artists?
Since cancelling Goliath’s work, the DSAC has allegedly restarted the Biennale planning process behind closed doors and assigned at least one team of artists to prepare work for the country’s pavilion. A 30-artist collective called Beyond the Frames tells The Art Newspaper that they “have been in talks with the department regarding the Venice Biennale”.
The Cape Town-based group’s spokesperson, Hannes Koekemoer, was reluctant to expand on details of their works or the overarching theme, due to the potential legal action against McKenzie and his department, saying legal proceedings may “affect our processes and our involvement”. They did however say that their proposed exhibition is titled Shameless Rebellions: a South African Chorus.
Koekemoer declined to comment on how Beyond the Frames were selected to replace Goliath. The collective participated in the initial open call in November, following which the organising committee undertook a confidential process and unanimously selected Goliath to represent South Africa.
When asked if Beyond the Frames were working in conjunction with other artists outside their collective, Koekemoer said: “I do not want to confirm or deny any other involvement, as this a highly sensitive matter.”
The DSAC has not responded to numerous requests for comment on whether they have approached Beyond the Frames or other artists.
Allegations of interference
McKenzie had, after his 22 December letter, alleged that “a foreign power” was involved in the process of planning Goliaths pavilion, claiming this lead to his decision to cancel it. According to the South African newspaper Daily Maverick, this “power” was actually Qatar Museums, which had initially explored purchasing a video recording of Elegy but reportedly lost interest before the minister sought to interfere in its content.
Meanwhile, a number of petitions have been launched calling on President Cyril Ramaphosa to dismiss McKenzie for “reintroducing apartheid-style censorship and curtailment of freedom of speech in contravention of the Constitution of South Africa” based on his interference with Goliath’s pavilion.
