Trouble at the Barbican Centre over the Gaza conflict continues. In an email to the cultural institution that leaked online this week, art collector Lorenzo Legarda Leviste explained his reasons for withdrawing two pieces from the Centre’s new exhibition.
“I cannot understate how disturbing and alarming this blatant act of repression (and lack of transparency) by the Barbican is,” wrote Leviste.
Leviste withdrew two works he had lent to the institution’s ‘Unravel...’ exhibition after senior leadership cancelled a talk on the Gaza conflict to be given by prominent Indian writer Pankaj Mishra as part of the London Review of Books (LRB) Winter Lecture Series.
Now a message has been pasted to the plinth where Leviste’s works were displayed. It reads: “These two works have been withdrawn at the request of the lenders, as an act of solidarity with Palestine, in response to the Barbican’s decision to not host the London Review of Books (LRB) Winter Lecture Series.”
The talk was rearranged and hosted in a new location last week and streamed on YouTube. “These are the ideas that the Barbican sought to censor. These are the truths it tried to suppress,” declares the Censorship at the Barbican website.
The leaked email continued: “The message it sends to arts institutions across the UK, and the precedent it sets for further suppression of speech, is chilling. It should horrify us all that this is the liberal democracy we are told we live in.”
It’s the second time in recent months the centre has been attacked for so-called censorship. In June last year, a display was taken down after a Barbican staffer asked exhibitors to avoid lengthy discussions of free Palestine at a talk.
In a statement this week to The Art Newspaper, a Barbican spokesperson said: “The exhibition presents many artworks that speak to protest, resistance and solidarity. We respect the lenders’ decision to withdraw their works.”
For Leviste, the centre’s response has left much to be desired. He hit back: “The Barbican’s statement demonstrates that the institution is still unwilling to provide any transparency regarding its censorship of Pankaj Mishra and the LRB.”
