Gabrielle Goliath fights back against censorship as she battles Arts Minister Gayton McKenzie to secure her Venice Biennale representation, highlighting the tension between art and authority. Law and art collided on Thursday when Gabrielle Goliath filed an urgent application against Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie. She is seeking to have his decision to cancel her 2026 Venice Biennale selection declared unlawful and set aside.
In between late-night consultations with the legal team and drawing up the papers filed at the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria, Goliath, curator Ingrid Masondo and studio manager James Macdonald have been in Cape Town filming the final suite of the artwork, Elegy, which was unanimously selected as the sole South African representative at the Venice Biennale. Goliath’s lawyers want the court to declare that McKenzie’s attempts to interfere with and obstruct the independent selection committee’s decision to select her work are unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid. Likewise, the minister’s cancellation of the selection for Venice.
The team is also seeking to interdict McKenzie from taking any further steps to interfere with or obstruct Elegy from being showcased at the Biennale. Goliath’s affidavit further argues that McKenzie’s censorial conduct, followed by alleged attempts to replace Elegy with other work, “constitutes a breach of the doctrine of unconscionable state conduct” because it amounts to the minister reneging on a “public undertaking to follow a public and lawful tender process” — while simultaneously attempting to replace it with an opaque and “secretive” one based on his personal whims and fancies. The final thrust of Goliath’s application argues that McKenzie’s actions demonstrate a worrying clampdown on the freedom of artistic expression, which is protected in South Africa’s Bill of Rights.
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She argues that McKenzie’s conduct “is incompatible with the right of freedom of expression and the rule of law”. She further makes the point that because of the minister’s behaviour, South African artists are left with the impression that they “must self-censor to ensure that their work complies with the views and beliefs of those who happen to hold high executive office”. This erodes freedom of expression, she argues.
The papers are also critical of McKenzie’s constant shifting of goalposts regarding the reasons he sought to censor and obstruct Goliath. Initially, the minister had cited concerns about needing to protect South Africa against allegations of genocide, and so objected to work that addressed accusations of genocide — confirmed by the United Nations — against Israel because of its killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. But, in a statement released by the arts ministry on January 10, a day after Daily Maverick’s exposé, McKenzie alleged he had concerns about a foreign power hijacking the South African Pavilion for its own geopolitical agenda — the “country” was Qatar Museums, and the allegations were soundly refuted by a Daily Maverick investigation.
This, Goliath argues, “fundamentally misrepresents the grounds upon which the minister purported to interfere”. Then, in a letter to Goliath and the artistic and curatorial team on 20 January, McKenzie says he retains the power to ensure “new artists and first-time international exposure” for selection to the Biennale. In a worryingly authoritarian move, McKenzie also states in the letter that he “enjoys a discretionary right to determine what artistic works or exhibitions may be supported, funded or displayed under [the department’s] banner”.
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