Iziko South African National Gallery
12.12 - 30.06.2026

Iziko Museums of South Africa is set to open ‘Steven Cohen: Long Life’, a major retrospective showcasing forty years of pioneering work by the internationally recognised South African artist Steven Cohen. The exhibition will take place at the Iziko South African National Gallery, located in the historic Company’s Garden, Cape Town, from 12 December 2025 to 30 June 2026.

This exhibition offers an unprecedented look at Cohen’s artistic career, which has shaped the discourse of performance art in South Africa, France, and beyond. Known for his fearless exploration of identity, politics, and belonging, Cohen’s work interrogates themes of sexuality, spirituality, race, freedom, ethics, memory and love. While engaging with universal themes, Cohen’s work is always rooted in deeply personal narratives of love, loss and resilience. The title, Long Life, is a phrase of condolence in Jewish custom, one that honours those who have passed while offering hope and affirming that to live is a blessing. This sentiment resonates throughout Cohen’s works. Above all, Long Life is about compassion and indignation, belonging and loneliness, and the connections with others that make life worth living.

Made up of installations, performance documentation, objects, images, films and ephemera, the exhibition offers a loosely chronological survey of Cohen’s life and work, coalescing around key relationships in the artist’s life. From textile-based works from the late 1980s, to documentation of Cohen’s uninvited public interventions in the late 1990s and early 2000s, to more recent performances conceived for the stage, the exhibition represents the breadth of a profoundly influential career.

The exhibition is curated by Dr Anthea Buys, an independent curator, writer and researcher based in South Africa.