Subscribe to our newsletter for our must-see exhibitions, artists, events and more here
Shop William Kentridge Prints here

Gabrielle Goliath: Beloved

26 October - 24 November 2023
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

Goodman Gallery presents Beloved, a new body of work by Gabrielle Goliath.

Beloved. Or as Christina Sharpe phrases it (with characteristic poise), be loved.

In this ongoing and very personal series of drawings and prints, the artist summons and celebrates a chorus of both radical and quotidian femme presences: poets, priestesses, activists, artists, parents and prodigies. Beloved is an ode, a work of the heart – a labour of recognition, thanks and love.

Artworks

Oil stick and pigment on Fabriano Rosaspina Avorio 285gsm
Oil stick and pigment on Somerset paper
Work: 38 x 56.5 cm
Oil stick and pigment on Fabriano Rosaspina Avorio 285gsm
Oil stick and pigment on Fabriano Rosaspina Avorio 285gsm
Unavailable
Oil stick and pigment on Fabriano Rosaspina Avorio 285gsm
Work: 71 x 60 cm
Unavailable
Oil stick and pigment on Magnani Pescia soft white 300gsm
Paper: 67 x 57 cm
Gravure watercolour monotype, colléd to Kozo on Magnani Pescia soft white 300gsm
Image: 48.8 x 41.5 cm
Gravure watercolour monotype, colléd to Kozo on Magnani Pescia soft white 300gsm
Image: 48.8 x 41.5 cm
Polymer gravure print with handwork on Somerset newsprint grey 280gsm
Polymer gravure print with handwork on Somerset newsprint grey 280gsm
Work: 46.5 x 34.5 cm
Polymer gravure print with handwork on Somerset newsprint grey 280gsm
Polymer gravure print with handwork on Somerset newsprint grey 280gsm
Polymer gravure print with handwork on Somerset newsprint grey 280gsm

About

Gabrielle Goliath image

Gabrielle Goliath

Through the ritual, sonic and social encounters of her art practice, Gabrielle Goliath (b. 1983, South Africa) attends (and tends) to histories and present-day conditions of differentially valued life, reaffirming ways in which black, brown, femme and queer practices of possibility perform the world differently. Each of her works convenes a coming-to – a tenuous community – collapsing the presumed remove and privileged subject position of representation (as white, male, heteronormative) and calling for meetings in and across difference, on terms of complicity, relation and love.

In 2024, Goliath presented her first solo exhibition titled ‘Personal Accounts’, at a major UK institution, Talbot Rice Gallery. Goliath’s immersive, often durational installations have shown across South Africa and internationally. She has won several awards including a Future Generation Art Prize – Special Prize (2019), the Standard Bank Young Artist Award (2019), and the Institut Français, Afrique en Créations Prize at the Bamako Biennale (2017).

Recent exhibitions include: Personal Accounts, Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, UK (2024); Personal Accounts, 60th Venice Biennale (2024). This ongoing body of work is a transnational, decolonial, black feminist project of repair; Beloved, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg (2023); Chorus, Dallas Contemporary (2022), Dallas; This song is for…, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2022); This song is for…, Konsthall C, Stockholm (2021); Our Red Sky, Göteborgs Konsthall, Gothenburg (2020); and The Power of my Hands, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris (2020).

She has won a number of awards including a Future Generation Art Prize – Special Prize (2019), the Standard Bank Young Artist Award (2019), and the Institut Français, Afrique en Créations Prize at the Bamako Biennale (2017).

Collections include: Kunsthalle Zürich; TATE Modern, Frac Bretagne, Iziko South African National Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, and Wits Art Museum.

Goliath lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Download full CV