Artists Criticize Royal Academy for Pulling Art Related to Gaza Conflict

More than 750 artists have signed an open letter castigating London’sRoyal Academy of Artsfor removing two student works addressing the war in Gaza from its “Young Artists Summer Show.” Among the letter’s signatories are musician and composer Brian Eno; visual artists Adam Broomberg, Nan Goldin, and Rosalind Nashashibi; filmmaker Mike Leigh; and Royal Academicians Rana Begum, Oona Grimes, Vanessa Jackson, Jock McFadyen, and Helen Sear. Artists for Palestine UK, the publisher of the missive, states that more than a hundred Jewish-identifying creatives have signed the letter.

The letter comes after the Royal Academy removed two works by student artists following a July 15 complaint from the Board of Deputies of British Jews that three of the works on view in the exhibition “comprise[d] antisemitic tropes.” The works pulled by the institution were a charcoal drawing, made by a sixteen-year-old named Andy, of women in hijabs screaming and holding one another before an image of a swastika, and a photograph by an eighteen-year-old named Kausar showing a person holding up a sign reading “Jews say stop genocide on Palestinians: Not in Our Name.” The third contested work—a depiction of a fighter pilot commanding a craft bearing the Star of David by Royal Academician Michael Sandle—remained in place.

“Far from protecting Jews, the RA is lending support to a racist, anti-Palestinian campaign that aims to silence expressions of support for Palestinian people,” reads the missive. “British arts institutions have the ethical, historical, and legal duty to uphold freedom of expression and anti-discrimination.” The letter writers demanded the Royal Academy outline “the measures it will take to repair the harm it has done by stigmatizing the work of the young artists it removed from the Young Artists Summer Show and by dehumanizing Palestinians.”

Artists for Palestine UK say the academy has invited the organization to meet to discuss the issue at hand. The activist organization acknowledged that the meeting, were it to take place, would offer an opportunity for “our Palestinian and Jewish partners [to] work with the RA towards repairing any harms that have been done, including the impacts of this across the cultural sector.”

Artforum has reached out to the Royal Academy for comment.