Last week, as many New York galleries opened their first exhibitions of the season, multiple commercial art spaces in Chinatown were pasted with anti-Zionist messages.
Among them were two galleries, Maxwell Graham and 56 Henry, that are both well-regarded in New York. The former had just inaugurated its first show of 2024 on Friday. Images of the posters were posted to Instagram on Sunday by Writers Against the War on Gaza, which said it did not paste the messages.
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The posters pasted to both galleries’ windows seemed to refer to both “gentrifying Chinatown” and “colonizing Palestine,” and seemed to accuse these businesses of being “complicit in genocide.” “STOP SELLING TO ZIONISTS,” read one on Maxwell Graham’s windows, a sentiment that was reiterated in another pasted to the entrance to 56 Henry.
A representative for Maxwell Graham did not respond to a request for comment. A representative for 56 Henry declined to comment.
These galleries were not the only ones targeted this month. Lévy Gorvy Dayan, which was previously pasted with a different set of messages in December, also appears to be the subject of a new campaign, with posters denouncing its owners appearing on the buildings of art spaces in Chelsea and in at least on Manhattan subway station.
In October, that Upper East Side gallery’s founders—Dominique Lévy, Brett Gorvy, and Amalia Dayan—publicly spoke out against a pro-Palestine open letter that ran in Artforum and was signed by thousands of artists. In a response statement also published by Artforum, they condemned the initial letter for “its one-sided view” while denouncing “all forms of violence in Israel and Gaza.” Days after their statement was published, Artforum editor David Velasco was fired. (Artforum’s parent company is Penske Media Corporation, which also owns ARTnews and Art in America.)
Posters that appeared this week on the facades of the Dia Art Foundation, David Zwirner gallery, and elsewhere accused Lévy Gorvy Dayan of being “funded by colonialism” and “silencing artists.” Writers Against the War in Gaza posted images of the posters to Instagram on Tuesday, along with a statement that was attributed to “an autonomous group of art workers demanded the art community cut ties with zionist gallerists Lévy Gorvy Dayan.”
“We address LGD because their aggressive collusion with zionist project is bound to police militarization, displacement, and activist suppression here in NYC—but we do not stop there,” that statement read, referring to the “complicity” of all art institutions that “aid the ongoing occupation of Palestine.”
A Lévy Gorvy Dayan spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source: artnews.com