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South Africa pulls out of Venice Biennale — because its selected artist wanted to focus on Gaza

JL;DR SUMMARY South Africa has withdrawn from the 2026 Venice Biennale following a dispute over the selected artist Gabrielle Goliath's planned installation, which focused on Gaza. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Israeli Palestinian ConflictGazaSouth AfricaArtistic FreedomVenice BiennaleGeopolitical TensionGabrielle GoliathHiba Abu NadaGayton MckenzieArt Periodic

Places mentioned

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
"Minister Gayton McKenzie during the 2026 State of the Nation Address Debate at the Parliamentary Dome on Feb. 17, 2026 in Cape Town, South Africa."
Venice, Italy
"South Africa will not participate in this years Venice Biennale following a dispute between its culture ministry and the artist it had selected, whose planned installation focused on Gaza."

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This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 75878
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2026-02-21 05:31:06 UTC
Curated 2026-02-21 08:30:27 UTC