Sport,Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie is accused of censoring a pro-Gaza artwork by a South African artist.
Daniel Hlongwane/Gallo Images
Sport,Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie is an ardent supporter of Israel in the Gaza conflict. He is accused of censoring a pro-Gaza artwork by a South African artist.The artwork is meant to premiere in an art show in Venice later this year. Civil society organisations have urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to act against what they call an “unconstitutional ministerial overreach” in the Venice Biennale dispute.
Sport,Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie is at the centre of the saga,in which he instructed the department to withdraw support for the artist representing South Africa in the 61st Venice Biennale.
The artwork that has upset McKenzie is Gabrielle Goliath’s Elegy.
Campaign for Free Expression executive director Nicole Fritz said the organisation,together with a broad coalition of civil society organisations,wrote to Ramaphosa,calling for an “urgent Cabinet intervention”.
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This in response to McKenzie’s cancellation of South Africa’s officially selected pavilion for the 61st Venice Biennale.
Fritz said: “While the minister’s decision has immediate and far-reaching consequences for freedom of artistic creativity,the letter makes clear that the matter raises a deeper constitutional concern: the abuse of executive authority and the failure of collective Cabinet responsibility to restrain it.”
READ | ‘I’m a patriot’: Gayton McKenzie explains why he cancelled pro-Gaza art submission
Public commentary and social media users have been critical of McKenzie’s decision,saying it bordered on censorship.
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“The minister terminated an open,independent,expert-led curatorial process after its conclusion and explicitly because of disagreement with the content of the selected work,” Fritz said.
“The duly appointed selection committee has since issued an extraordinary public statement warning of political pressure and attempts to silence free expression.”
Nonetheless,she added,McKenzie had persisted in asserting a “unilateral discretion” to override an independent process on “ideological grounds”.
Fritz said the Constitution did not have provisions that permitted McKenzie to overlook independent processes on a “personal whim”.
She added:
This is not only about the arts. It is about whether executive power remains subject to constitutional limits,and whether the Cabinet will exercise its collective responsibility to enforce those limits when they are breached.
The NGO’s letter situated the Venice Biennale controversy within a “wider pattern of unchecked ministerial conduct,noting that earlier publicly criticised threats made by the minister” to his department-owned entities,according to Fritz.
She said these alleged transgressions have gone unchecked by the Cabinet.
“Civil society warns that such inaction emboldens further abuses of power.
“The coalition has called on the Presidency and Cabinet to intervene decisively to reaffirm the constitutional protection of artistic freedom,to correct the minister’s unlawful exercise of authority,and to ensure that Gabrielle Goliath’s work Elegy – unanimously selected through an independent process to represent South Africa at the Biennale – is restored and exhibited as originally determined.”
In response to negative media coverage over his alleged suppression of art,McKenzie said he made the decision because he was a “patriot” who was concerned about there being another country that sought to exploit South Africa’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
His office has yet to respond to News24’s query about which country that was.
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