- Standoff. (Image by Walid Raad)
It’s not that often (these days) that artists rise up against the hypocrisies of the art world—a world that easily pays lip service to human rights while feeding on the extreme wealth of the few.
But in the case of Abu Dhabi Guggenheim, a group of 130 artists—including Walid Raad, Kader Attia, Emily Jacir, Shirin Neshat, and Mona Hatoum—are all threatening to withhold their works from the future museum due to working conditions on the site of its construction.
I wish I’d been a fly on the wall of this well-heeled conference room:
In June 2010 Mr. Raad and Emily Jacir, a Palestinian artist who lives part time in New York, approached Mr. [Richard, Guggenheim director] Armstrong and Nancy Spector, the museum’s chief curator, to discuss conditions on Saadiyat Island…
The last time an artist tried to keep his work from being exhibited at a museum was during the recent Hide/Seek controversy at the Smithsonian, when Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough kneejerkingly removed a David Wojnarowicz video after it was called anti-Catholic by right-wingers. In response, artist AA Bronson request that his large painting of his friend and former collaborator Felix—depicted shortly after he’d died of AIDS-related complications—also be removed from the exhibition, and the Canadian museum that owned the work and had loaned it to the Smithsonian supported Bronson. But the Smithsonian refused, keeping it up against the artist’s wishes.
In Abu Dhabi, it may not matter whether artists want their work on display. Plenty of things trump authorship—ownership, for one. But it’s nice to see artists standing up.
