A gaggle of protesters staged an illustration within the foyer of the Whitney Museum of American Artwork final Friday night, Might 23, concentrating on board members “tied to genocide, militarism, and apartheid” and accusing the museum of censorship after it canceled a efficiency about Palestinian mourning on the Impartial Examine Program (ISP) earlier this month. The protest lasted about one hour, with roughly 50 activists in participation, together with a number of alumni of the ISP, a program funded by the Whitney.
The motion got here two weeks after the museum canceled the Might 14 staging of “No Aesthetic Outside My Freedom: Mourning, Militancy, and Performance,” a efficiency piece by artists Noel Maghathe, Fadl Fakhouri, and Fargo Tbakhi that had been organized by the ISP’s present curatorial cohort. Hyperallergic reported that Museum Director Scott Rothkopf took challenge with Tbakhi’s introduction to the efficiency from an earlier staging final 12 months, during which Tbakhi asks viewers members who supported Israel to depart.
An instance of the custom-printed museum pamphlets distributed to guests
Catalyzed by the museum’s resolution, the protesters took over the foyer through the weekly Free Fridays program, deploying painted banners and indicators accusing the museum of “artwashing genocide,” “sponsoring war crimes,” and “policing artists.” The group handed out 600 mock museum pamphlets figuring out particular board members and their ties to Zionist, militarized, and surveillance-oriented entities.
The tri-folds named Nancy Carrington Crown, whose relations are main shareholders of Basic Dynamics, the arms and data techniques firm that has provided the Israeli navy with bombs and ammunition; Estée Lauder inheritor Leonard Lauder, whose brother Ronald is the president of the World Jewish Congress and a md emeritus of the Jewish Nationwide Fund; and billionaire Laurie Tisch, whose cousin Jessica Tisch turned the New York Metropolis Police Commissioner final November.
A number of hand-painted banners concentrating on the museum had been introduced in through the Free Friday Nights programming.
The protesters remained within the foyer from 8pm to 9pm earlier than exiting with out drive. They chanted exterior for roughly 20 minutes earlier than dissipating. No arrests had been made.
This isn’t the primary time the Whitney’s board has been focused in pro-Palestine protests. A bit of over a 12 months in the past, activists staged a sound- and projection-based intervention through the Whitney Biennial to name out Carrington Crown and museum sponsor Hyundai Motors for his or her ties to the Israeli navy. In November 2023, activists doused the museum’s stairs with pretend blood throughout a march for Gaza in Manhattan.
The museum isn’t any stranger to criticism and actions in opposition to its board members, both. Ex-Vice Chairman Warren Kanders was ousted from the Whitney in 2019 after persistent protests and artist withdrawals when it was revealed that his firm, Safariland, produced and bought tear fuel that was used on the US-Mexico border in addition to Puerto Rico.
The Whitney didn’t instantly reply to Hyperallergic‘s request for remark.
From the museum’s second flooring balcony, guests and safety watch because the protest unfolded. 
One protester wears a shirt with the Holocaust-era pink triangle reimagined as a watermelon, invoking ACT UP’s “Silence = Death” slogan utilized to the continued decimation of Gaza.
