Shortly before Minister Gayton McKenzie cancelled Gabrielle Goliath’s participation at the 2026 Venice Biennale because part of her selected artwork dealt with Gaza, the Goodman Gallery cancelled its relationship with the acclaimed artist. Instead of popping champagne corks and celebrations, Gabrielle Goliath’s selection as the artist to represent South Africa at the 2026 Venice Biennale was met with a curious response at the Goodman Gallery, her South African representatives: she was sacked. Goliath, critically acclaimed locally and internationally, was told of the news on 18 December in a three-way Zoom call with the gallery’s owner and director, Liza Essers, and Olivia Leahy, a senior director and head curator at the gallery.
The artist had been called into the meeting via email earlier that day. Goliath said the news “surprised” her since she had “been with the gallery for over 10 years”, and it felt ironic that Essers and Leahy “chose to meet with me and deliver this news on the same day as my show Berenice was coming to a close in their New York space. “They were already aware of me having been awarded the South African Pavilion [at the Venice Biennale], which is, of course, an exceptional honour, not only for an artist but for a gallery as well — and specifically one such as Goodman, which boasts a deep-rooted history in this country.
“I am still grappling with this severing of our relationship at a time in which I am facing cancellation and censure,” Goliath said, referring to attempts by Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie to change the content of her artwork Elegy in a letter sent four days after she was dropped by the Goodman Gallery. Having failed in his attempt to make his imprint on Goliath’s work, on 2 January, McKenzie cancelled her participation in the biennale. According to letters by McKenzie in Daily Maverick’s possession, the minister had been motivated to censor Elegy after learning that part of it dealt with the Israeli-perpetrated genocide in Gaza.
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The minister, in turn, has stated publicly that his actions were motivated by an attempt to prevent an unnamed “foreign government” from hijacking South Africa’s pavilion in Venice. Elegy is a three-suite piece which also engages with the Ovaherero and Nama genocide perpetrated by German colonial forces in Namibia in the early 1900s and the ongoing femicide in South Africa, which has been described by President Cyril Ramaphosa as a “national crisis”. Elegy has developed and changed over a decade, and the latest version, which addresses the killing of women and children in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces since October 2023, was kept under wraps until its selection was confirmed on 6 December.
Those involved in the selection process were made to sign non-disclosure agreements, and the Goodman Gallery was first notified of the artwork’s updated contents on 8 December. Daily Maverick understands that no one at the Goodman was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, as there is an implicit relationship between the gallery and its artists based on goodwill. McKenzie’s political interference has stunned the South African arts community, raised questions about a Cabinet minister clamping down on the constitutionally enshrined right to freedom of expression and caused the Democratic Alliance to report him to the Public Protector for investigation. According to Goliath, Essers and Leahy had stated that she was one of several artists that the gallery would be letting go, as it was facing “significant difficulties, which would necessitate further structural shifts, in addition to this downsizing of their stable of artists”.
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