Maintain My Hand in Yours at Pepperdine College’s Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Artwork includes a vary of paintings that facilities fingers as symbols of labor, id, care, and connection. Curated by Weisman Museum Director Andrea Gyorody, the exhibition opened on September 6 and was slated to run till March 29. Final Wednesday, October 1, Elana Mann, one of many artists within the present, was knowledgeable by Gyorody that her video “Call to Arms 2015-2025” (2025) had been turned off on the college’s request.
Maintain My Hand in Yours set up view with work by Elana Mann in middle (picture by Paul Salveson, courtesy Weisman Museum)
Mann’s video paperwork performances and activations involving a collection of sculptural devices the artist made out of the solid of an arm, examples of which have been additionally included within the present. These objects have a cupped hand with a gap on one finish, like a megaphone, and a trumpet-like bell on the different finish. Chronicling “ten years of collaboration, unruly sounds and collective listening,” as a title card states, many of the performances came about at artwork establishments. One efficiency proven within the video, nevertheless, was a part of the 2017 Might Day March in Los Angeles, throughout which individuals used Mann’s horns to chant phrases like “No Justice, No Peace,” “Say it Loud, Say it Clear, Immigrants are Welcome Here,” and “No aceptaremos una América racista” (“We won’t accept a racist America”). All through the video, interstitial titles present historic context, referencing the aftermath of the 2016 election, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the “summer of racial reckonings.”
AMBOS, “Con Nuestros Manos Construimos Deidades (With Our Hands We Build Deities)” (2023) (picture by Paul Salveson, courtesy Weisman Museum)
Left: Element of AMBOS, “Con Nuestros Manos Construimos Deidades (With Our Hands We Build Deities)” (2023) (picture by Henry Adams, courtesy Pepperdine Graphic); Proper: Set up view of AMBOS’s work (picture by Paul Salveson, courtesy Weisman Museum)
College directors additionally took concern with an embroidery that learn “Save the Children” and “Abolish ICE,” a part of “Con Nuestros Manos Construimos Deidades (With Our Hands We Build Deities)” (2023), a big collaborative sculpture by the group Artwork Made Between Reverse Sides (AMBOS). In keeping with Natalie Godinez, govt director of AMBOS, officers turned the material swatch in order that the textual content was not seen and eliminated an indication informing guests they might contact the paintings.
The work was the results of a collection of workshops targeted on problems with cross-border migration held by AMBOS in Tijuana, San Diego, and Los Angeles. Over 240 individuals made casts of their fingers and sewed patches with messages of safety resembling the devotional Christian clothes generally known as scapulars.
“This was made in community across borders, with the idea that you can touch the hand of the person on the other side of the border,” Godinez advised Hyperallergic. “By censoring a piece of the artwork and not allowing people to interact with it, it waters down the meaning.”
Element of AMBOS, “Con Nuestros Manos Construimos Deidades (With Our Hands We Build Deities)” (2023) (element) (picture by Paul Salveson, courtesy Weisman Museum)
In response to the college’s actions, Mann and AMBOS requested that their works be withdrawn from the present.
Each artists advised Hyperallergic that Pepperdine administration didn’t clarify their resolution. In response to Hyperallergic’s inquiry, a consultant for the college cited the works’ political content material. “Because Pepperdine’s established practice with the Weisman Museum has been to avoid overtly political content consistent with the University’s nonprofit status, it removed these two pieces from display,” Michael Friel, Pepperdine’s senior director of Communications and Public Relations, advised Hyperallergic.
President Trump and Republicans have ramped up threats to the nonprofit sector in current weeks. On September 25, Trump signed the memorandum “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” which instructs federal companies to prosecute nonprofit organizations “engaged in acts of political violence.” Advocacy teams have warned that the memo’s imprecise language offers the federal government energy to silence dissent and suppress diverging views.
Works by Roksana Pirouzmand and Carmen Argote, who requested to withdraw from the present
Previously week, a number of artists within the present requested that their work even be eliminated or coated in solidarity with Mann and AMBOS, and as a gesture of protest in opposition to the college’s actions.
“Elana [Mann]’s work strikes me as overtly egalitarian — it is about the right to free speech, the right to protest, and the right not to be silenced,” Cara Levine, an artist included in Maintain My Hand in Yours, advised Hyperallergic. “I don’t see it as arguing for or against any particular political position … It argues for the essential value of free political speech.”
In her letter to Gyorody requesting that her work be withdrawn, artist Carmen Argote wrote that “the censorship of Elana Mann’s work and the collective work of AMBOS being censored is a loss for the students and for the art community, and it signals that the gallery, under current conditions, can no longer function as a place for art.”
“Removing, censoring, or modifying artwork under opaque circumstances is alarming, and does not bode well for the state of creative expression, especially in a university context that is supposed to foster teaching and learning,” stated artist Stephanie Syjuco, who requested that her video “Black Out the Sun” (2021) be withdrawn from the present. “On its website, Pepperdine states that it is committed to an inclusive environment, and I sincerely hope that this extends to the content of its museum exhibitions.”
After a number of artists requested to take away their works, the college determined to shut the exhibition altogether on Wednesday, October 8, Friel advised Hyperallergic.
Though Mann stated she has handled some pushback relating to her work prior to now, she had by no means had a chunk faraway from show after a present had opened.
“I was caught totally by surprise,” she stated.
Even so, Mann, like many artists within the present, famous similarities between this case and bigger assaults on artwork and tradition happening nationwide.
“The work began during a very specific cycle of politics that is now reaching its apex,” Mann stated.
