LONDON – More than 100 arts workers gathered outside Tate Britain during the 2024 Turner Prize ceremony on Tuesday evening, December 3, to protest the institution’s links to Israeli military interest groups. Inside the museum, artist and Turner Prize winner Jaslyn Kaul took to the stage to express solidarity with the protesters and the Palestinian cause.
“I want the separation between political expression in the gallery and political practice in life to disappear,” Kaul told attendees.
“I hope the institution understands: If you want us in, you need to be on the outside listening to us. Ceasefire now, arms embargo now, free Palestine.”
Externally, activist groups including Artists + Cultural Workers, Union of Artists England, Boycott Zabrudovich, Palestinian Goldsmiths Guild, Strike Start, Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of the Arts London (UAL) and Workers for Free Palestine are demanding Tate severed ties with Tate. Organizations and companies they claim financially support or help “art-wash” Israel’s attacks on Gaza and the occupied West Bank include Barclays, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HP), Outset Contemporary Art Fund, Zabludowicz Arts Trust and Zabludowicz Art Project.
“The arts industry leans toward progress, but institutions are in trouble [issue]”, said White Pube art critic Zarina Muhammad, speaking during the protest. “They have all the money, all the resources, all the power, but we have to tell them how to act. “
The exterior walls of Tate Britain are projected with a selection of artworks from the Gaza Biennale, a traveling exhibition of 60 artists from within and outside Gaza.
“Art exists to express the pain of this world and the dreams of another,” Barnaby Raine, another speaker, historian and organizer, told the crowd. “We know this creative spirit, this refusal to accept that violence in this world is everything and that there can be something better, we know this spirit is carried by artists in Gaza.”
A small pro-Israel counter-protest far outnumbered the pro-Palestinian rally, with about 25 people holding signs that read “Don’t let Hamas hijack our culture.” After a while, the team dispersed.
Tate has yet to respond allergicRequest for comment.
The protests follow a report released last month by a United Nations special committee that found Israel’s war methods in Gaza “consistent with genocide, including the use of starvation as a weapon of war.” Also in November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif. A judge ruled that Netanyahu and Galante were “criminally responsible” for “war crimes of deliberate attacks on civilians” in Gaza.
The protests also followed an open letter to the Tate last week calling on the institution to cut ties with Outset and Zabludowicz Art and “take a clear stance against genocidal and apartheid art cleansing”.
More than 1,200 artists and cultural workers have signed the letter, including 2024 Turner Prize nominees Pio Abad and Claudette Johnson and winner Jas Jasleen Kaur. Signatories also include former Turner Prize winners Jesse Darling, Tai Shani, Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Helen Cammock; Palestinian artist Jumana Manna; and artists Sofia Al Maria, Rene Matic and Hannah Black.
Zabludowicz Collection co-founder Poju Zabludowicz has been CEO of Tamares Group, a private real estate investment company since 1990, which the letter said provides telecommunications infrastructure for Israeli settlements considered illegal under international law, including Palestinian private Several settlements on the land. allergic The Zabludowicz Collection has been contacted for comment.
The letter also raises questions about the Outset Contemporary Art Fund, which financed the Tate acquisition, because of Outset’s corporate partnership with Israeli diamond company Leviev, which has been accused of human rights abuses. Leviev’s founder, Lev Leviev, is accused of profiting from illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Earlier this year, campaign group Strike Outset drew attention to Outset Contemporary Art Fund co-founder Candida Gertler and her husband Zak, Benjamin Netanya A close friend of Benjamin Netanyahu and held his 70th birthday party at his home in Tel Aviv. 2019.
Candida Gertler, Anita Zabludowicz and Poju Zabludowicz have been Tate members since at least 2008, according to the letter A member of the Museum’s International Committee, Gertler has been an executive member of the committee for more than ten years.
On November 29, four days after the letter was published, Gertler announced his resignation from all voluntary positions within the Outset Contemporary Art Fund and within UK arts institutions, effective immediately.
Strike Outset said in a statement that it was “a victory for our movement, but our movement continues,” adding, “This is structural, not personal.” The group said the boycott would Continue until the Outset Contemporary Art Foundation closes its Israeli chapter and severs all ties with the Israeli occupation.”
