A St Louis art centre has come under fire for taking down artists Dani Collette and Allora McCullough's exhibition Planting Seeds, Sprouting Hope after finding some of the featured works to be antisemitic.
Collette and McCullough were selected by the Craft Alliance, a craft-focused gallery space, gift shop and education hub, as artists-in-residence in July 2023. The 11-month residency pairs artists in a shared studio and provides stipends and tuition waivers to participants, as well as the opportunity to organise a show.
Colette and McCullough explained that they had structured their exhibition, which opened on 21 June and was due to continue until 20 July, according to anti-genocide and pro-Palestine tenets. Shortly before the opening, two of Collette’s pieces from the show were removed without the artists' knowledge: a glass bowl decorated with a keffiyeh print and a series of watermelon-shaped pieces carved with the phrase “Land Back”, a reference to a broad Indigenous movement towards the decolonisation of settler-occupied territories. Two title cards for other pieces by Collette, Indigenous to Palestine and From the River to the Sea had also been removed.
“From the river to the sea”—a slogan decried by some as an inherently antisemitic call for the destruction of Israel and its people, and employed by others as a call to action against oppression and violence throughout the region—has been a frequent focus of conversations about censorship and freedom of expression since Hamas's terror attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023.
“I showed up and my artwork was gone, and my titles were gone, which I think is an incredibly disrespectful and aggressive stance to take without any sort of discourse or effort at discourse,” Collette, who is of Indigenous descent, told St Louis Public Radio. “I have a firsthand account from a Palestinian person who informed me that when they use it, it’s a call for freedom, equality and peace for all inhabitants ‘from the river to the sea’, including Jews and Israelis.”
On 24 June, the Craft Alliance released a statement announcing its plans to remove the show for its use of “antisemitic slogan[s] and imagery” that called for “violence and the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel”. According to the artists, their teaching positions with the alliance were also terminated.
“To accuse us of being antisemitic because we want to support freedom for innocent civilians is absurd,” McCullough told St Louis Public Radio.
The artists claim they told the Craft Alliance's administrators about the conceit for the show two months prior to the opening. But the alliance’s Instagram statement claims that Collette and McCullough "did not share the artwork and titles" ahead of time.
“I wish that more people were open to the idea of art spaces being a safe space for discourse, and that sometimes discourse is a little uncomfortable, but it should never be violent,” said McCullough. “I think that the reaction of removing my livelihood and removing Dani’s work, specifically her Indigenous work, are violent actions.”
In a statement to St Louis Magazine, Craft Alliance executive director Bryan Knicely stated that the artists' alleged choice to withhold the titles of their works until 45 minutes prior to hanging the show left the organisation little choice.
“While we are saddened by this situation, and for the artists, we are following policies and procedures for the concern and safety of our staff, volunteers, members, donors, students and patrons,” he said. “Most organisations who work with artists to display political work conduct significant pre-work to educate staff, patrons and children—especially children and their parents. These artists did not provide us with an opportunity to provide education to the community in any meaningful way. Finalising a political exhibition hours before it opens is careless and these artists left the burden of public interpretation up to our staff and volunteers.”
Colette and McCullough contend that, while they might have been late in providing the titles of their works, they had made the alliance staff aware of their choices a day before the opening and worked on the title cards themselves alongside alliance staffers.
While Collette and McCullough's exhibition at the Craft Alliance is over, the show will go on. Nearby Fifteen Windows Gallery has offered to host the exhibition beginning on 13 July, with a public talk by the artists on 10 August.
Instances of artists being censored for their vocal support of Israel or Palestine have increased dramatically since the Hamas terror attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and Israel's ensuing military campaign in Gaza. The National Coalition Against Censorship recently launched an online database to chronicle such incidents in the US.
Around 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s terror attacks in Israel on 7 October, and around 250 people were taken hostage. More than 37,700 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military’s ongoing aerial and ground campaign in Gaza, according to health authorities there.