Gabrielle Goliath

“The single note in Elegy is equal parts clarion call and durational rejection of mourning’s expected temporality. The performativity of Goliath’s practice lies in its metabolic urgency: its response to the necrographic commitment to one another, and to the dead whose memory comprises the shared memorial responsibility of the living.”

Zoé Samudzi
Mousse Magazine

…

“Elegy is an artwork that gives us space to grieve. Grieving is reparative work. It is reflective work. It is where we may continue to love and long for what, really, cannot be repaired.”

M. Neelika Jayawardane
MOMUS

…

“Collective grief, Goliath seems to propose in this body of work, is a necessary tool for building solidarity — it constitutes a collective action, a precarious coalition of grievers, an impetus for change. How many revolutions have begun at a funeral? And, perhaps even more pointedly, how many atrocities have only deepened because of our failure to mourn?”

Aruna D’Souza
Hyperallergic

…

“…Elegy is severe in its economy: seven voices, a single sustained note, one hour … This restraint could itself be seen as an ethical position, a refusal to aestheticise pain or produce the kind of spectacular image of suffering that gets consumed and then forgotten.”

Joyce Joumaa
ArtReview

____

The copyright for any material published on this website is reserved. Any duplication or use of objects such as images, videos, sound files and texts is not permitted without the written agreement of the artist.

Elegy

Performances
2015-

Gabrielle Goliath, Elegy - for a poet, performance, 2026, Homecoming Centre, District Six, Cape Town, photos by Zunis

Gabrielle Goliath_Elegy - for two ancestors_2024_performance_La Biennale di Venezia_Sale d’Armi_Venice_photo by J Macdonald_7.JPG

Gabrielle Goliath_Elegy - for two ancestors_2024_performance_La Biennale di Venezia_Sale d’Armi_Venice_photo by J Macdonald_4.JPG

Gabrielle Goliath_Elegy - for two ancestors_2024_performance_La Biennale di Venezia_Sale d’Armi_Venice_photo by J Macdonald_9.JPG

Gabrielle Goliath_Elegy - for two ancestors_2024_performance_La Biennale di Venezia_Sale d’Armi_Venice_photo by J Macdonald_10.JPG

Gabrielle Goliath_Elegy - for two ancestors_2024_performance_La Biennale di Venezia_Sale d’Armi_Venice_photo by J Macdonald_11.JPG

Gabrielle Goliath, Elegy - for two ancestors, performance, 2024, Sale d’Armi, La Biennale di Venezia (2024), photos by J. Macdonald

Elegy - Eunice Ntombifuthi Dube_photo_ Centre for the Less Good Idea(1).jpg

Elegy - Eunice Ntombifuthi Dube_photo_ Centre for the Less Good Idea(2).jpg

Elegy - Eunice Ntombifuthi Dube_photo_ Centre for the Less Good Idea.jpg

Elegy - Eunice Ntombifuthi Dube_photo_ Centre for the Less Good Idea(7).jpg

Gabrielle Goliath, Elegy - Eunice Ntombifuthi Dube, 2018, Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg, photos by Stella Tate

Elegy_Joan Thabeng_Do Disturb Festival - Palais de Tokyo - Gabrielle Goliath - Crédits Ayka Lux (1).jpg

Elegy_Joan Thabeng_Do Disturb Festival - Palais de Tokyo - Gabrielle Goliath - Crédits Ayka Lux (3).jpg

Elegy_Joan Thabeng_Do Disturb Festival - Palais de Tokyo - Gabrielle Goliath - Crédits Ayka Lux (2).jpg

Gabrielle Goliath, Elegy - Joan Thabeng, 2018, Do Disturb Festival, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, photo by Ayka Lux

Gabrielle Goliath, Elegy - Sizakele Sigasa and Salome Masooa, 2018, Verbo Performance Art Festival, Saõ Paulo, photos courtesy Galeria Vermelho

Gabrielle Goliath, Elegy - Noluvo Swelindawo, 2017, ICA Live Art Festival, Cape Town, photos courtesy Institute for Creative Arts