Gabrielle Goliath says Gayton McKenzie violating freedom of expression after ‘highly divisive’ artwork Elergy banned from SA pavilion
A South African artist is suing the arts minister after he blocked her from representing the country at the Venice Biennale, having called her work addressing Israel’s killing of Palestinians in Gaza “highly divisive”.
Gabrielle Goliath filed the lawsuit last week, with Ingrid Masondo, who would have curated the pavilion, and the studio manager, James Macdonald. It accuses Gayton McKenzie of acting unlawfully and violating the right to freedom of expression and demands the high court reinstates her participation by 18 February, the deadline for confirming installations with biennale organisers.
Goliath, whose video work Elegy pays tribute to a Palestinian poet killed by an Israeli airstrike, told the Guardian: “We hope to reclaim the pavilion, which we believe is rightfully ours.
“But more importantly than that, it is the significance of the work … that speaks far more eloquently to these very difficult questions of whose life is recognised as a life worth grieving after.”
