The Lives of Others: Gabrielle Goliath at the IZIKO National Gallery

Published on ArtThrob, 20 December 2019.

“Somewhere someone is singing Everybody Hurts, and catching on the same line. Here, in this country, where violence stains not only lives but the most commonplace of places and objects. It pools in open fields, classrooms, municipal buildings, public toilets, homes. Here, where a state-issued postal scale turns state evidence, and the line, borrowed from a play – He acts out a rape, using the broomstick and a load of bread – appears in a national school exam paper. Where everywhere people trade trauma like talismans. And one’s mind returns always to the same names – to Tshepang, Booysen, Khwezi, Uyinene – to those whose stories punctured our complacency, spilt unwelcome into our lives and worst imaginings. To those who have come to represent so many others. One woman every six minutes. We are numbed to numbers, fail to comprehend them as lived fact. Too many names, too many lives lost. At the protests, the speakers deliver a liturgy of horror. And the president says to the women of the country “I know how you are feeling.” And all that is left are platitudes and catchphrases. There are no words, and only words (words will never be as heavy as a body). And everybody hurts, and everybody hurts, and everybody hurts.”

Read the full review here.