Sometimes, you encounter headlines that seem baffling, like this recent one: South Africa Cancels Venice Biennale Proposal Highlighting Gaza Victims. You wonder: Isn’t this the same nation that accused Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice? Indeed, it is, but currently, the country is led by a right-wing arts and culture minister who deemed artist Gabrielle Goliath’s performance as ‘highly divisive.’ Moreover, he suggested, without evidence, that a ‘foreign power’ had a hand in the artwork.
Writer and academic Christina Sharpe and University of Buffalo professor Rinaldo Walcott couldn’t ignore this and felt compelled to react. In a compelling article this week, they express their disappointment in a nation that, having once dismantled Apartheid, now seems to neglect its own revolutionary roots.
Simultaneously, the White House is exerting pressure on the Smithsonian, demanding the DC institution provide all details of its programming — even down to wall-label texts — to ensure alignment with the president’s views. Prepare for a series of exhibits on American exceptionalism, adorned with elaborate gold cursive titles.
Christina Sharpe and Rinaldo Walcott write, ‘South Africa’s cancellation of Elegy risks adding to a regrettable pattern of actions aimed at erasing Gaza and Palestinians from the art world’s public view. To suggest that this move echoes the trauma of an ongoing genocide is not an exaggeration, given the impact of an official’s censorship on behalf of the same government that has urged global attention to Israeli acts of genocide.’
