Gabrielle Goliath (born 1983 in Kimberley, South Africa) is a South African contemporary artist who lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. Goliath is recognized for her immersive installations and performances that confront themes of violence, memory, and identity. Her work often centers on the experiences of marginalized communities. She is a researcher at the Institute for Creative Arts at the University of Cape Town, where her research continues to explore ethical strategies for addressing violence and absence in contemporary art.
GoliathâÂÂs practice centers on sonic and social forms that refuse spectacle and instead create conditions for witnessing. Her installations are often elegiac, ritualized, and participatoryâÂÂdedicated to black, brown, femme, queer, and other historically dispossessed subjectivities. Her work resists the commodification of suffering and insists on new forms of presence through breath, lament, and collective voice.
In its profile on Goliath, ArtReview highlights her long-form performance Elegy (2015âÂÂongoing), a powerful work that commemorates victims of gendered and queerphobic violence through the ritual of sustained vocal mourning. She recounts to artist Amadour, in an earlier interview for The Brooklyn Rail, that the work was first imagined after hearing the father of Ipeleng Christine Moholane speak publicly of his daughterâÂÂs death. âÂÂI began envisioning an artwork to counteract this abhorrent but normative brutality,â Goliath told Amadour. âÂÂHow could I create something to refuse this order of violenceâÂÂa space for others to participate and mourn?âÂÂ
In the same conversation, Goliath spoke of the choral format as a conceptual framework for justice and shared grief:<blockquote>âÂÂWhen one choir member runs out of breath and cannot sing anymore, there are other voices to carry on the lament. In this way, itâÂÂs not only about song, as such, but breathâÂÂa collective offering and holding of breath.âÂÂ</blockquote>
In 2026, a controversy involving Goliath centered on the cancellation of her exhibition, Elegy, for the 61st Venice Biennale by Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie. The exhibition was deemed "divisive" for referencing victims of gender-based violence, queer people, and victims of the Herero and Nama genocide. The controversy specifically targeted a section paying tribute to Hiba Abu Nada, a Palestinian poet killed in Gaza, leading to accusations of censorship, a lawsuit by the artist, and South Africa's eventual withdrawal from the Biennale. The incident sparked international concern regarding artistic freedom and institutional integrity.
Her works are held in international collections including Tate Modern, Kunsthalle Zürich, Iziko South African National Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, and Wits Art Museum.
Gabrielle GoliathâÂÂs work articulates a politics of refusalâÂÂrefusal to normalize violence, to aestheticize pain, or to speak over survivors. Instead, her art offers what scholar Christina Sharpe might call âÂÂwake workâÂÂâÂÂan ongoing tending to Black and queer life in the aftermath of catastrophe.