On February 20, South Africa’s culture ministry announced that it had withdrawn from the 2026 Venice Biennale, marking the country’s first absence from the exhibition since 2011. The decision follows the government’s earlier cancelation of artist Gabrielle Goliath’s proposed pavilion.

The terminated commission centered on a new iteration of Goliath’s ongoing series Elegy (2015– ), which would have paid tribute to Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, killed during an Israeli airstrike, as well as other victims of state and gendered violence in Gaza and South Africa. South Africa’s minister of sports, art, and culture Gayton McKenzie labeled the project as “polarizing” and “highly divisive,” canceling the pavilion on January 2 after Goliath refused to make alterations to the work.

Goliath and curator Ingrid Masondo filed an urgent legal application on January 22 to overturn the decision, arguing that the state had no right to veto the pavilion and had infringed on the artist’s constitutional right to freedom of expression. McKenzie’s representative maintained that the minister was acting on contractual rather than constitutional grounds. On February 18, hours before the biennale’s submission deadline, judge Mamokolo Kubushi of the North Gauteng High Court dismissed the case without giving reasons and ordered Goliath and Masondo to pay the respondents’ legal fees. Goliath’s team expressed intentions to appeal, stating that they were “profoundly disappointed” and warned that the ruling “sets a dangerous precedent, jeopardizing the rights of artists, curators, and creatives in South Africa to freedom of expression—freedom to dissent.”

Two days later, the government confirmed they would not host a pavilion at the biennale. Asked whether she would still bring the project to Venice in another venue, the artist told The Art Newspaper that Elegy “is not contingent on any particular platform,” adding that if she and Masondo can “convene a space in Venice to grieve, refuse, and imagine the world differently,” they will do so.

The South African government has made no further comments.

Aisha Traub Chan is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.