Artist Gabrielle Goliath’s attempt to reinstate cancelled Venice Biennale pavilion dismissed by court

South African artist Gabrielle Goliath’s urgent court application to overturn the cancellation of her planned 2026 Venice Biennale pavilion was dismissed by South Africa’s high court, in a decision reported on 19 February 2026. Judge Mamoloko Kubushi ordered Goliath and curator Ingrid Masondo to pay court costs to respondents including Gayton McKenzie, South Africa’s sport, arts and culture minister, and the pair said they will appeal. Goliath and Masondo were selected on 6 December 2025 to represent South Africa with a new iteration of Elegy, a decade-long project addressing femicide and the murder of LGBTQI+ people, with a Venice version also referencing the Ovaherero and Nama genocide and the death of Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, killed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023. McKenzie objected in a 22 December letter to the Abu Nada-related section as “highly divisive,” and after Goliath refused to change it, the pavilion was cancelled in early January 2026; the online hearing took place on 11 February.

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