Over 100 artists and intellectuals have signed an open letter calling on participants to withdraw from the exhibition Living as Form (The Nomadic Version). The letter is in response to the show touring to Technion – the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa – which has close links to the Israeli military and defence technology industry. Signatories to the letter include Lucy Lippard, Walid Raad, Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency, Allora & Calzadilla, and Celine Condorelli & Gavin Wade.
The show is produced by New York-based public art commissioning agency Creative Time and is a major survey exhibition of socially-engaged practices across theatre, activism, urban planning and visual art. An expanded version of the 2011 Living as Form exhibition curated by Nato Thompson in New York’s Essex Street Market, it is currently touring to venues internationally as part of the Independent Curators International‘s Exhibition in a Box series.
The letter was written on 10 June by the BDS Arts Coalition, a group working in support of the wider BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel). It details Technion’s military work, including its involvement in the development of drones and unmanned bulldozers. It states: “As admirers of your work and this critical exhibition… we are concerned about the disconnect between the artists’ orientation toward social justice and the exhibiting institution’s central role in maintaining the unjust and illegal occupation of Palestine.”
Creative Time have published a response on their website, which states: “For more than 40 years, free speech has been fundamental to our mission and hence we do not participate in cultural boycotts. Instead, we believe that art can play a powerful role in addressing, even advancing, social change…
‘As an act of solidarity with the BDS movement, some artists chose to withdraw from Living as Form (The Nomadic Version) in Haifa while others did not. This highlights the fact there are a wide range of beliefs about the effective ways to participate in change… We can only hope that there is room to consider political possibility, ethics and efficacy whether it is in the gallery of Technion, in the halls of our museums, in the biennials of the world or in the streets of our cities.”
Living as Form (The Nomadic Version) is at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology until 28 June and concurrently at Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota until 14 September
