Artists are pulling their work from the National Gallery of Art, which receives funding from Congress, in protest of the US providing military aid to Israel. Sponsors withdrew from the National Book Awards ceremony last month after learning that authors were planning to call for a ceasefire. Literary events are being postponed or canceled, museums are becoming sites of protest, and open letters and boycotts of organizations are proliferating.
The war between Israel and Hamas is roiling the arts and literary worlds. The death toll in Gaza, which has surpassed 15,500 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, has compelled thousands of artists and writers to speak out against Israel’s military actions and the institutions they think are failing to meet the moment. Many are accusing organizations of trying to suppress the speech of people critical of Israel and are demanding that institutions issue public statements about where they stand. The artists and writers, in turn, are facing backlash from organizations, donors, and other artists, who see a failure to appropriately acknowledge the victims of Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7 and the rise in global antisemitism since the conflict began.
The conflict is forcing leaders to navigate larger existential questions about the power and limits of arts institutions at this moment, including whether museums should try to stay neutral or whether they should take an active role in responding to political and social issues. These questions aren’t entirely new, but they’ve taken on a new sense of urgency amid current politics and deepening polarization since 2016, experts say.
“Galleries, museums, curators, and the people who are in charge of art programs have become much more invested in the idea that institutions and artworks have a political or a social function,” says JJ Charlesworth, an art critic and editor at ArtReview magazine. “The idea of the art gallery as some kind of special or…
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