Winston Saoli presents his first solo exhibition at Goodman Gallery. His chalk, charcoal and ink drawings demonstrate an assured command of form and composition. As Linda Givon observed at the time, Saoli's talent expressed itself through form rather than subject matter, marking the emergence of a figurative artist of clear promise.

In response to the conceptual currents of the 1970s, Battiss proposes an imagined territory grounded in freedom, play, and dissent. Through its invented alphabet and cast of figures, Fook Island allows Battiss to sidestep apartheid censorship while offering a pointed critique of the period. Gallery founder Linda Givon is drawn into the world, assuming the role of Queen Asteroia, while fellow gallery artist Norman Catherine contributes creatures to populate the island. Satire, politics, and community fold into a single artistic proposition.

"After retiring from academia in 1971, Battiss became a seditious pensioner interested in conceptual mischief. In 1973, he invented an imaginary utopia called Fook Island. Inspired by his travels to islands in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, Fook's free-spirited visual expression and democratic ethos were a rebuke to apartheid-era censorship. 'Anybody can be king or queen of Fook Island,' he explained. 'I am King Ferd the Third, and Norman Catherine is a Norman King of Fook. People only have to ask.'"
– Sean O'Toole

Curated by Ricky Burnett with the support of BMW, Tributaries brings together white artists alongside black artists trained in both urban community art projects and the rural homelands — the first exhibition of its kind to be held in a public museum. Among the artists featured are Robert Hodgins, William Kentridge, Sydney Kumalo, Edoardo Villa, Noria Mabasa, Ezrom Legae, Pat Mautloa, Leonard Matsoso, and Cecil Skotnes, many of whom were already showing at the gallery.

Sue Williamson's publication Resistance Art in South Africa documents the role of art in the anti-apartheid struggle, cementing a body of work that institutional narratives had largely ignored.


"It was a great decision to publish the book, which, incidentally and amazingly, was not banned. It drew attention to people of every creed, colour, stripe, and opinion in the country who were trying to make work about a nation in crisis. Many of them were overtly political, but very discreet and cleverly couched within a book that did not quote banned words or depict portraits of people who were living under restrictions and orders, or in solitary confinement. It made a fitting tribute to the artists who were working in that vein to prompt the conscience of the country, and to show what kind of contribution art could make to the arguments surrounding South African society."

— Neil Dundas

The gallery plays a central role in facilitating South Africa's first participation in the Havana Biennial, supporting the presentation of thirteen artists including Penny Siopis, Sue Williamson, Brett Murray, and Willie Bester. Linda Givon recalls the undertaking:


"A curator from Havana arrived and chose the artists he wanted — thirteen of them — so there had to be payment for their work, the artists' fares to Cuba, and then of course their board and lodging. It was a big commitment. There was no South African embassy, but there was the African National Congress Mission that fed the artists, which was very important in a country where there was no food."

On the Road was an exhibition of contemporary art from Southern Africa presented as part of the Africa 95 Festival of Arts, a major art event held in London in 1995. The exhibition brought together a selected group of artists from South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Angola, offering them the opportunity to participate in this landmark international platform.

Taking place concurrently was Mayibuye iAfrika at the Bernard Jacobson Gallery, featuring works by Willie Bester, Norman Catherine, Kendell Geers, Robert Hodgins, William Kentridge, Kagiso Pat Mautloa, Zwelethu Mthethwa, and Penny Siopis. In addition, Seven Stories, curated by David Koloane, was presented at the Whitechapel Gallery, which includes a key work by Sam Nhlengethwa of Steve Biko.

To mark his 80th birthday, Robert Hodgins presents New Works, a major exhibition that sells out entirely. A long-standing presence in the gallery's programme, Hodgins marks the occasion with characteristic vigour, the sell-out reception a testament to both his enduring relevance and the loyalty of those who have followed his practice across the decades.

Linda Givon marks the opening of the gallery's Cape Town branch with a two-part inaugural exhibition that pays homage to Lift Off, the show that relaunched the Johannesburg space in 1997. Lift Off Part I brings together many of the artists from that original presentation, including Willie Bester, Norman Catherine, Kendell Geers, David Goldblatt, Robert Hodgins, William Kentridge, Kagiso Pat Mautloa, Sam Nhlengethwa, Penny Siopis, and Sue Williamson.

Lift Off Part II extends the programme to both established and younger artists, among them Deborah Bell, Lisa Brice, Frances Goodman, Moshekwa Langa, Brett Murray, Cecil Skotnes, Mikhael Subotzky, Tracey Rose, Clive van den Berg, Lolo Veleko, and Jeremy Wafer.

Born in New Jersey to a photographer mother and a jazz musician father who was a member of the Black Panther Party, Hank Willis Thomas grew up at the intersection of image-making and political urgency. By 2008, his monograph Pitch Blackness had won the Aperture West Book Prize, and his Unbranded series, in which he digitally stripped all products and logos from decades of advertisements targeting African Americans, asking what exactly was always being sold, had established him as one of the most searching voices on race and visual culture in America. Among the first artists Liza Essers brings into the programme, his debut solo exhibition in South Africa, All Things Being Equal, opens at the gallery in 2010, a meeting between that American excavation and a country with its own unfinished reckoning with how blackness has been constructed and commodified. It marks the beginning of an ongoing conversation.

No Romance marks the first major South African exhibition by Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, two artists whose collaborative practice began by accident in the early 2000s, when one began painting on canvases the other had left unfinished. What started as an unplanned intervention became a sustained method: works passed back and forth until both artists are satisfied. Their collaborations centre on women and nature, brought together here alongside individual contributions from each artist. Amer presents a new series of embroidered paintings and 100 Words of Love, a hollow sculpture bearing carved synonyms for love in Arabic. Farkhondeh presents Broken Landscapes, paintings layered with masking tape that evoke separation, uprooting, and reassembly. The exhibition is presented at the Johannesburg space, accompanied by a significant catalogue produced by the gallery.

This edition of [Working Title] is curated by Hank Willis Thomas and Liza Essers, and takes inspiration from Nina Simone's 1969 song written in memory of playwright Lorraine Hansberry, who died in 1965 at the age of 34. The exhibition draws a line between the Civil Rights Movement and the emergence of Black Lives Matter, asking what lies between those two moments of resistance. In Thomas's own words:


"Young, Gifted, and Black is about our moment, looking back at theirs. What lies between their Civil Rights and our Black Lives Matter? All over the world we cry out ever more fervently that our lives matter, even as evidence mounts supposedly to the contrary. However, we ourselves have never been in doubt of this truth, as Simone's powerful words attest."

— Hank Willis Thomas