Parisian art dealer Olivier Waltman has a rather talkative temper. In mid-September, however, he was low-key about his fight called “Will Their Voice Be Heard?” “. In the program of this flash exhibition, during three short days, about forty works by artists, mainly Israelis, put up for sale for the benefit of the families of hostages captured by Hamas. “I wanted to stay under the radar to avoid trouble”murmured the gallerist, burned after having his mezuzah hanging outside the gallery ripped off last June.
In the same month, the metal plaque of his colleague Frank Elbaz, also of the Jewish faith, was scratched. The latter then raised his concerns with the Art Galleries Professional Committee, of which he is a member, in the hope of a public position from the union on the outbreak of anti-Semitic acts – this was condemned in their July newsletter . Frank Elbaz lived painfully on October 7, which shattered his accomplice relationship with two exhibition curators. He ordered his friends to balance their compassion and for one of them to remove the tablet “Stop the Genocide” from his Instagram profile, he was immediately criticized for being deaf to Palestinian suffering. Since then, these friends are no longer friends, they no longer speak, they no longer get along. “In my worst nightmares, I never thought I’d live this way”laments Frank Elbaz.
Art for art’s sake, this utopia of a bubble of mutual understanding, is no longer an option since the slaughter committed on October 7, 2023 by Hamas, which caused approximately 1,200 deaths, and the bombings launched in retaliation by the Jewish state, which have killed more than 41,000, according to Hamas’ count, turning Gaza into a field of ruins. This sector that considered itself a tolerant tower of Babel withstood the madness of the Middle East for only a few days. From October 19, an article published by the magazine Artforum accuse Israel of “genocide” and calls for the liberation of Palestine, without reference to Hamas atrocities or demands for the release of the hostages. The text, which gathered 8,000 signatures, immediately divided the art world into two increasingly radical camps, leaving little room for moderate voices.
A year of excommunication
“Where are you talking?” »I asked politicians in the 60s who demanded absolute consistency between social status and beliefs. Today’s political commissars repeat the same questions. Returning only to their nationality, the Israeli creators are judged to be in solidarity with Benyamin Netanyahu’s government, although most of them are fighting politically, allegedly responsible for the accumulated deaths in Gaza, while most campaign for a Palestinian state.
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