An Art World Divided
How the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups is taking its toll on modern art.
BEFORE 7 OCTOBER, the contemporary art world tended to be seen as a reliably liberal bloc, with shared values around issues of social justice including race, gender and reproductive rights. But Hamas’s attack on Israel that day and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza have divided artists, gallerists, curators and other art professionals in an unprecedented manner.
Across the art world, people traded accusations of antiSemitism, Islamophobia and censorship. Pro-Palestinian protests erupted at numerous institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Talks were disrupted; artists pulled works from shows. In one case, a group of Jewish anti-Zionist artists withdrew their pieces from San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum, in part to protest funding from the Israeli government and pro-Zionist foundations. Another museum in that city, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, closed for several weeks after nine of the 30 artists in its triennial spraypainted pro-Palestinian messages onto their own works and demanded that any supporters of Zionism be removed from the board. The interim CEO, who is Jewish, resigned, citing fears for her safety.
Private institutions have also become targets. New York’s Neue Galerie, founded by Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, was splashed with red paint, as was Pace Gallery, which was tagged with slogans such as ‘free Gaza’. Its opening reception for an exhibition by Israeli artist Michal Rovner was disrupted by protesters. A group of small galleries on the Lower East Side were plastered with posters printed with slogans such as ‘stop selling to Zionists’.
On the flip side, museums have cancelled or delayed exhibitions by artists who have been critical of Israel. Indiana University’s Eskenazi Museum of Art called off the respected Palestinian American abstract painter Samia Halaby’s retrospective at nearly the last minute after she labelled Israel’s bombings genocide. The prominent philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler withdrew from a lecture series at Centre Pompidou after detractors accused her of antiSemitism for describing the 7 October attacks as “an act of armed resistance” rather than as terrorism.
The turmoil has reached far beyond the US. Germany has been convulsed with uncharacteristic criticism of its longtime support of Israel, and Ruth Patir, the artist representing Israel at the Venice Biennale, has refused to open her country’s pavilion until there is an agreement for both a ceasefire and the return of Israeli hostages. The discord is loud and pronounced, the pain searing. The question left for those from every corner to resolve: how will the art world heal itself?