University Cancels Palestinian Artist’s Retrospective
By Anna Lentchner
Portrait of SAMIA HALABY in her studio, August 2016. Courtesy Wikicommons.
A retrospective exhibition at the Indiana University Bloomington (IU) of 87-year-old Palestinian artist and alumna Samia Halaby was abruptly canceled on December 20 ahead of its February 10 opening. The university informed the artist the show had been nixed in a two-sentence email citing unspecified “safety concerns.”
President Pamela Whitten has come under fire for canceling the exhibition, “Centers of Energy,” at the school’s Eskenazi Museum of Art. IU students have launched a petition to reinstate the survey—Halaby’s first in the United States—and in which the authors allege the show had been in the works for over three years. Many at IU and the greater arts community were left baffled why the exhibition, scheduled to host approximately 35 abstract paintings and drawings from across Halaby’s career, posed a threat. The university leadership offered no evidence to support the claim of any risk around the exhibition.
The petition blames President Whitten for the decision, claiming “we know she has the power to reverse it.” Students stated they reached out to her prior to publicizing the statement but received no response, leading them to believe the decision stemmed from the university seeking to “distance itself from the cause of Palestinian freedom.” The petition ends by demanding IU reinstate the exhibition and has garnered more than 2,000 signatories to date.
Halaby was born in Jerusalem in 1936 and grew up in Palestine. In 1951, the artist moved to the United States to attend IU, where she graduated with an MFA in painting. While developing her own abstract artistic style, Halaby traveled extensively, finding inspiration in global Islamic architecture that often features large-scale geometric compositions. After gaining international acclaim in the 1970s for her unique, freeform aesthetic, the artist became the first female associate professor at Yale University’s School of Art.
Halaby’s artworks would have been on view at the Eskenazi Museum of Art until June 9 before moving to the Broad Art Museum at the artist’s other alma mater, Michigan State University, in later June, with the title “Eye Witness.” Without another exhibition planned for the interim dates, IU’s museum will likely be void of work to display for a significant amount of time, hindering students’ access to arts and cultural education.
While Halaby has not yet released an official statement, she has posted to her Instagram page several times since the news broke. In one post, she writes, “we hope they reverse their decision,” and in another she publicizes the aforementioned petition, which is also linked in her bio. Since October 18, the artist has also actively posted to social media amid Israel’s siege and bombardment of Gaza following Hamas militants’ attack. In some posts, her rhetoric may have been deemed inflammatory by IU leadership, particularly as criticisms directed at Israel have been increasingly characterized as antisemitic.
In one such post, she wrote: “They [Israel] murder, steal, demonize, lie, rape, enslave, and we suffer . . . PALESTINE IS THE ANVIL ON WHICH THE HAMMER BLOW OF IMPERIALISM MIGHT RELEASE REVOLUTION.” In another, a political cartoon-like sketch depicts an Israeli soldier (identifiable by a Star of David on his helmet) pointing an assault rifle at a child; the words “Muhamad and Goliath” are inscribed underneath.
Anna Lentchner is assistant editor at ArtAsiaPacific.
