Activists Take to Guggenheim Museum to Denounce Israeli Airstrikes

The Guggenheim Museum in New York City quickly closed off its entrance on Saturday afternoon, November 11, after eight artists and cultural staff took to the establishment’s iconic spiral ramp to denounce the Israeli navy’s ongoing killing of Palestinian kids in Gaza. Donning face masks to conceal their identities, the demonstrators displayed eight material banners to assemble two photographs of anguished Palestinians grieving over our bodies of useless kids killed by Israeli bombardments. In the middle of the photographs was a mute quantity icon, alluding to current reviews of censorship round Palestinian solidarity.

The motion started at 4:30pm, when activists unraveled the banners from the third ground of the museum. Many guests responded with applause and whistles whereas others gathered reverse the show to take images. A couple of minutes later, when a workers member tried to take the banners down, a number of guests started booing and asking the museum to maintain them up. The workers member left the artworks alone, however a couple of minutes later, further museum staff confirmed up and commenced eradicating the banners, drawing additional disapproval from the group.
“What’s the point of taking it down?” a customer shouted.
The banners have been utterly eliminated a couple of minutes earlier than 5pm. During the demonstration, a line of tourists fashioned exterior the primary entrance as museum workers quickly stopped accepting new guests and closed off the bottom ground, citing “security protocol.” Police officers arrived on the scene shortly after 5pm. Visitors weren’t evacuated and no arrests have been made. The Guggenheim Museum declined to remark.
The demonstrators, who requested to stay nameless, instructed Hyperallergic that the banners depicted paintings by the Spanish modern avenue artist Escif. The artworks are primarily based on images taken by Palestinian journalists Mahmoud Bassam and Belal Khaled, who’ve been documenting the Israeli navy’s ongoing escalation in opposition to Gaza and the Palestinian occupied territories. Constant airstrikes, a multi-scaled siege, and a floor invasion have thus far killed over 10,818 Palestinians dwelling in Gaza since October 7, in accordance to November 9 data from the Gaza Ministry of Health. The bombardment started the identical day Hamas militants stormed the southern Israeli checkpoint and killed roughly 1,200 Israelis and took roughly 200 hostages, in accordance to the most recent reports from the Israeli navy.

The collective’s banner show mimics final yr’s Anonymous Artists for Iran demonstration calling consideration to the Iranian protest motion for ladies’s rights. Participants within the Saturday motion instructed Hyperallergic that they selected the Guggenheim as a protest website once more as a result of the museum’s present group exhibition, Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility, focuses on the obscuring or concealing of the human physique; and due to a 2016 blog post about censorship of the humanities in Israel on the museum’s web site.
In an announcement supplied to Hyperallergic titled “Genocide Must Stop,” the group inspired the general public “to delegitimize governments” that help the killing of Palestinians, citing human rights organizations which have referred to Israel’s bombardment as ethnic cleansing, and demanded that nations instantly push for “a long-overdue ceasefire” and supply humanitarian support to Palestinians in Gaza.

Calling out the “institutional repression, street-level harassment, and violence” which have emerged round help for Palestine, the activists referenced an growing public stress to “self-censor” and accused the mass media of allotting “misinformation and extreme censorship for geopolitical gains.” Invoking the not less than 40 reporters who’ve been killed since October 7 — 35 Palestinian, 4 Israeli, and one Lebanese, in accordance to the Committee to Protect Journalists — the group additionally confused the vital function of journalists presently “bearing witness” to Israeli violence.
“We must now exercise our power as workers, tax-payers, and members of society towards the change we want to see,” the activists’ assertion reads, calling on the general public to take part solidarity with Palestine and “stand against genocide and violence.”

