Tag: Gabrielle Goliath

Black Desire & Femme Rage: Goliath and Mohale’s Encounter at Goodman

This past Saturday, the Poetry Readings and Conversation brought together Gabrielle Goliath and Maneo Mohale in an event organised by the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. Founded in 1966 during a time of unthinkable violence and segregation, seldom has the institution presented us with such profoundly embodied explorations of Black desire, sensuality, and queerness in art. The happening was thanks in part to a collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class at the University of Johannesburg and its Global Blackness Summer School, whose theme this year is: For Wholeness. Black Being Well.

Selecting Maneo Mohale as the function’s facilitator was fitting. Not only did the poet and feminist writer have unstoppable chemistry with the guest of honour, but they were also incredibly qualified to take on such delicate subject matter. Mohale has contributed to various publications and served as a contributing editor at i-D Magazine. Their debut poetry collection, Everything is a Deathly Flower (2019), was shortlisted for the Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize and long-listed twice for the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthology Award.

The recipient of the 2019 Standard Bank Young Artist Award, Gabrielle Goliath’s work is featured in numerous public and private collections globally including Constellas Zurich, Tate Modern, and Iziko South African National Gallery. Her new body of work Beloved at Goodman Gallery, features drawings and prints. The exhibition, running from October 28 to November 24, 2023, features representations of radical Femme figures like Gabeba Baderoon, Caster Semenya, Sylvia Wynter, Yoko Ono, Sade, and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. While primarily recognised for her sound and performance art, the day was all about Goliath’s autographic practice.

Gabrielle Goliath and Maneo Mohale in conversation. Image captured by Thembeka Heidi Sincuba

Mohale began by inviting the audience to take three grounding breaths. They followed by sharing a poem, The Autobiography of Spring by queer Palestinian poet George Abraham, proceeding thereafter to introduce Goliath’s Beloved. Peering out the coffee table in front of the speakers, one could see Toni Morrison’s own Beloved (1970). This setting and sequence of events set a very specific tone for the day. From the get-go, it was clear that Goliath and Mohale were engaging at the intersection of Blackness, well-being, and creativity, with a soft emphasis on themes of sensuality, and queerness.

The way they spoke to each other was gentle and generous. When asked about her practice, Goliath replied, “I want to first speak about this notion of mark-making as a means of being close…” Echoing the mood in the room, Mohale praised this tactile, material, and more physically engaged process. Goliath continued, “… that really refuses the sort of sanctioned genius of the male artist, who works from a removed distance. And I refuse that. The physicality of the way in which I work and work on the floor. I work really close to these drawings. I relinquish the control of the hand. It’s not about the precious fidelity of the mark … it’s about relinquishing to the miraculous, what comes of that moment.”

Of course, it would be difficult to speak of love and intimacy without mentioning their antitheses. Goliath characterised her past work Elegy (2015), as a lament-driven work that addresses fatal acts of violence against women while avoiding the perpetuation of trauma. She said, “I did not want to return to the scene of subjection, I did not want to repeat the violence.”

At the nexus of art and violence, Mohale skillfully identified space for Femme rage, saying “ … in the wake of so much violence enacted upon my own body, it was really important for me to think it and hook it up to Empire … Not just these giant spectacular eruptions of violence, but legacies of violence.” Drawing inspiration from Glen Coulthard’s concept of “righteous rage,” Mohale invited us to view rage as a tool for Black Femme resistance.

Mohale prompted Goliath to reflect on the implications of portraying Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in this show. For a while, the pair lingered there and we saw something of a rupture in the way the two saw rage, with Mohale remarking, “I enjoy how my understanding of rage differs from you.” Goliath went on, “ … for me, what is really interesting with Madikizela-Mandela’s portrait specifically, is I find it very vulnerable. … it’s magisterial, but there’s a resignation … when I look at her.”

One of the seemingly many roots of the strong intellectual chemistry between Goliath and Mohale was the impact of Christina Sharpe on both of their work. Goliath’s encounter with Sharpe’s Monstrous Intimacies (2010) brought her towards an understanding of violence as both spectacular and insidious. Goliath insists: “We may need to bear our rage, and allow it to be transformed into the possibility of something else.”

In an audience-pleasing turn, Mohale asked Goliath about her portrayal of artist Desire Marea. As Mohale notes, “Desire being an initiated Sangoma is also not a footnote. … so much of their spiritual power is ancestral, is linked to bloodlines. … I think the sense of the sublime is also something that I chase in my own work, but … I’m seeing the clear instances and connections that are happening now between … contemporary queer artists.”

The intimate intellectual interaction between Goliath and Mohale prompts a collective reconsideration of the role of rage in desire and queerness in African artistic practices. It also did the long and thankless work of taking up space in an almost impervious institution. As we looked around the room and saw reflections of ourselves, both in the flesh and on the walls, we allowed ourselves to yearn for, perhaps even celebrate the dynamic and precarious possibilities within Black queer existence. Even amid this briefly beautiful moment of perceived reprieve, we were reminded of the violence that surrounds us as Mohale closed the discussion with a steady citation of Gabeba Baderoon’s War Triptych (2004).

13 November 2023
Gabrielle Goliath’s ELEGY // a deadly sonic experience

I am certain that it is impossible to shake off visual artist, Gabrielle Goliath’s, ELEGY performance. It has been weeks since I was part of the audience and I am still haunted by the memory.

The chatty room fell dead quiet as the seven operatic female singers dressed in all black walked in single file towards the almost cubic stage.

The first singer in line stepped onto the stage and began to sing the single note that was passed on to the next singer as she stepped off and the other stepped on.

The B natural note that was sustained throughout the hour-long performance resembled wailing.

As the performance taxingly progressed a singer would silently leave the line and stand to form a circle around the audience until only one singer remained.

Once the remaining singer joined the circle, they collectively exited the room.

Just like that we partook in the ritual of mourning that had been enacted by the seven black operatic singers.

Sobs now added to the soul-stirring silence.

The presence of the absent individual was hefty.The absent individual being a dead black girl, a dead black girl whose subjectivities were fundamentally violated and consigned her to a generic, all-encompassing victimhood.

Goliath’s ELEGY ceremoniously takes this form. The life of a South African woman, trans or non-binary, that was raped and killed is commemorated. At the performance that I attended at the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre in collaboration with the Goodman Gallery, we commemorated the life of Karabo Mokoena, a young black woman who was murdered by her former lover.

ELEGY like most of Goliath’s topics is loaded. Goliath grapples with the problematic of the representation of violence, pain, suffering, trauma and the narrative of others and of another. There is a profound delicateness in Goliath’s imaging, sounding and writing about these sensitive topics. Goliath strategically works around the violence to create the affective impact her audiences are left with.

Through ELEGY Goliath created a moment where loss became a site for community and empathetic cross-cultural and cross-national encounters. During the Q&A after the performance, the audience was evidently distressed because the performance did not provide a means of catharsis, which was deliberate. Goliath made us personalise a traumatised black body instead of routinely objectifying it. A distinct decolonial and intersectional space is created during ELEGY, which presents mourning as a social and productive work. ELEGY gives to those who have not been given a moment and plagues us with the irresolution of gender based violence.

4 January 2018
Subverting Historical Whiteness – The Evidence of Things Not Seen

The free-standing building is isolated – a visual juxtaposition to the once-high-end and now dilapidated apartments around it. Surrounded by a colourful and bustling city center – it is a relic of a bygone era in Johannesburg.

A façade of stone and traditional columns preceded by grand stairs elevate up from the local hustle and lead one into an architectural time-capsule. The sandstone cladding was originally sourced from Elands River. The presence of museums in the South African context relates directly to the Colonial project. The physical orientation of the original south facing building designed by a British Architect is implicit of a lack of understanding regarding the African environment – overlaying European norms and values at every turn.

Maswanganyi Johannes

However, on entering the historical building – it is difficult to restrain a sense of awe. Immersed in a space flooded with niggling nostalgia. From the Southern entrance one is absorbed into a white rectangular space with arching high ceilings, accompanied by floral embellishments. Several hardwood expansive doors with golden filigree open onto an internal courtyard. Above, gold flakes cascade off chandeliers. ‘The Phillips Gallery’ appears over a pair of curved hallways monumentalizing the institution’s former patrons in the glittering typeface of white capital.

Only a little more than twenty years after gold was first struck on the Witwatersrand, the Johannesburg Art Gallery was established. Just over one hundred years on, the building and its immense collection still stands. However, in the ‘post’-apartheid, ‘post’-colonial context a radical shift has occurred in the spatial and visual representation within the museum walls. Its latest exhibition, The Evidence of Things Not Seen, opens its doors to the public on the 19^th of November. It shares its title and conceptual articulation with a text by James Baldwin – in exploring the lived experience of people of colour. Pain that historically, has been systematically silenced by an overriding and enveloping whiteness.

Belinda Zangewa

The exhibition, curated by Musha Neluheni in collaboration with Tara Weber seeks to engage in social discourse surrounding notions of identity – manifested in the realms of queerness, feminism(s) and the Black experience. The show initially emerged as a “side-project” – mirroring as a platform for the Black Portraitures Conference – but grew into something far larger. One of the aims of the project was to actively engage the work of contemporary artists and allow their work to activate other historical works in the collection. These historical giants include the likes of Dumile Feni, Gerard Sekoto, David Koloane and Cyprian Shilakoe.

Other artists featured in the show include: Mary Sibande, Belinda Zangewa, Nandipha Mntambo, Tracey Rose, Berni Searle, Zanele Muholi, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Reshma Chhiba, Johannes Phokela, Santu Mofokeng, Johannes Phokela, Mustafa Maluka, Portia Zvavahera, Moshekwa Langa, Nicholas Hlobo, Nandipha Mntambo, Donna Kukama, Gabrielle Goliath, Senzi Marasela, Turiya Magadlela, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Mohau Modisakeng, Sam Nhlengethwa, Ranjith Kally, Ernest Cole, Valerie Desmore, Ezrom Kgobokanyo Legae, Winston Churchill Saoli, Sydney Kumalo, Julian Motau, Helen Sebidi, Mohapi Leonard Tshela Matsoso, John Muafangejo, Azaria Mbatha, Daniel Sefudi Rakgoathe, Charles Nkosi, Johannes Maswanganyi and the FUBA Archive.

Kally_Ranjith

The Evidence of Things Not Seen articulates a critical reformulation of the institutional space, one underpinned by an engagement with a Pan Africanist ideology. A position rarely embraced by public art institutions in South Africa. Tara Weber describes the exhibition as a kind of “homage to James Baldwin” noting that his treatment of identity politics is, “sensitive, but brutally honest”. The curatorial strategy has been made visually manifest in a similar vein – located in a space that seeks to subvert its own historical context.

“There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.” – James Baldwin

Johannes Phokela

18 November 2016