Goodman Gallery is an international contemporary art gallery with locations in Johannesburg, Cape Town and London. The gallery represents artists whose work confronts entrenched power structures and inspires social change.
Read MoreGoodman Gallery has held the reputation as a pre-eminent art gallery on the African continent for over half a century. It has been pivotal in shaping contemporary South African art, bringing David Goldblatt, William Kentridge, David Koloane, Sam Nhlengethwa and Sue Williamson to the world’s attention for the first time during the apartheid era.
Liza Essers has brought more than 30 international artists to the gallery roster since she became owner and director in 2008. Goodman Gallery has a global programme working with established artists from South Africa, the next generation of significant voices from the continent, as well as prominent international artists engaged in a dialogue with the African context. Some of these artists include Kapwani Kiwanga, Grada Kilomba, Yinka Shonibare CBE, Lisa Brice, Candice Breitz, Mikhael Subotzky, Hank Willis Thomas, El Anatsui, Ernesto Neto, Alfredo Jaar, Shirin Neshat and Ghada Amer.
Critical to this programme has been the introduction of two ongoing curatorial initiatives: In Context, which explores tensions of place and belonging; and South-South, which considers connections between artists from the ‘global south’. Goodman Gallery’s expansion to London furthers this mission to confront dominant historical narratives and to contribute to contemporary art discourse and social repair.
Goodman Gallery has a legacy of facilitating broader social access to art, serving in an institutional capacity through its public programming, publishing, and education. The gallery and its artists have a history of supporting NGOs committed to advocating for human rights. In 2019, Goodman Gallery has partnered with Witkoppen Health and Welfare Clinic to raise funds for their work providing first-rate medical and welfare services to under-serviced populations in Johannesburg.
Goodman Gallery first participated in Art Basel in 1982 and has featured on the Frieze Art Fairs since 2013.
Ocula News Photographers Broomberg & Chanarin 'Euthanise' Art Partnership Barcelona, 22 February 2021 Goodman Gallery issued an obituary for the duo ahead of their first 'posthumous' retrospective.
Ocula News Nigeria’s Rele Gallery Opening in Los Angeles Los Angeles, 26 January 2021 Founded in Lagos, Rele is among the first African galleries to expand outside the continent.
Ocula News South South, Devoted to Art in the Global South, Goes Live Johannesburg, 19 January 2021 More than 50 galleries will participate in the platform's first event, entitled SOUTH SOUTH VEZA, in February.
Ocula News Following Martial Arts Trope, Galleries Try to Be Like Water Brussels, 22 December 2020 Adapting to the post-pandemic world, 21 galleries have joined the fluid GALLERIES CURATE initiative.
Related Press Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Announces 7 Site-Specific Installations 5 December 2019, The New York Times The artists are El Anatsui, Byung Hoon Choi, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Olafur Eliasson, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Cristina Iglesias and Ai Weiwei, and they were commissioned to create a mix of sculptures, light installations and suspended artworks for the 14-acre premises, known as the Susan and Fayez S. Sarofim Campus.
Related Press Hank Willis Thomas Opens Up Space for Interpretation, Which Is Sometimes Risky 26 November 2019, Hyperallergic PORTLAND, Ore. — The night I went to see Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal... I found the Portland Art Museum flooded with people museums often hope to draw in: a visibly diverse, casually fashionable set of 20- and 30-somethings — a group I rarely encountered at PAM on past visits from Seattle.
Related Press Beyond Frieze – what’s in store in London this week 1 October 2019, Apollo Frieze Week has long been the busiest spell in the London art calendar, with Frieze London and Frieze Masters (3–6 October) joined by a host of major gallery exhibitions across the city.
Related Press Kapwani Kiwanga according to Sarah Rifky 30 September 2019, Fonsation D'Entreprise Ricard I cannot remember what time of day it was that I was standing outside of Bétonsalon, a center for art and research in Paris. As I write this my memory is straining, trying to reconcile the two cities, Cairo and Paris, that I moved between that summer four years ago. What I do remember was being pensive, standing outside the art space. I was there...
Related Video & Audio El Anatsui: ‘The golden rule is, there are no rules’ 7 June 2019, Art Basel El Anatsui has carved a name for himself with his monumental hanging sculptures made with recycled metal scraps. As imposing and spectacular as they are fragile and portable, these works have been exhibited in some of the world's most prestigious institutions, most recently at Munich's Haus der Kunst and in the Venice Biennale's first Ghana...
Related Video & Audio Shirin Neshat: the power behind the veil 11 May 2016, Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art In many middle eastern cultures men are totally restrained from any expression of emotion, says Iranian artist Shirin Neshat (b. 1957) in this interview: "All my photographs are about controlled emotions. They are always a juxtaposition of the dark side of life and the good side of life. Of light and darkness. Pain and joy. Violence and...
Related Video & Audio El Anatsui: Language & Symbols 1 April 2016, ART21 In this video, Ghana's best-known contemporary artist, El Anatsui, speaks about the role that language and symbols play in his work. He describes how the abstract nature of West African "adinkra" symbols and the flexibility of meaning in the words of his native language of Ewe resonate with the concept of non-fixity and indeterminateness...
Related Video & Audio Alfredo Jaar: Images are Not Innocent 7 February 2013, Louisiana Channel Alfredo Jaar was interviewed by Christian Lund at Malmö Konsthall, February 2013.
