A group of artists are pulling their work from the Manchester leg of a prestigious touring art exhibition after the director of the Whitworth art gallery was asked to leave his post following a row over the removal of a statement of solidarity with Palestine’s “liberation struggle”.
The 23 artists – including the Turner prize winners Helen Cammock, Tai Shani and Oscar Murillo – were among 48 due to feature in the British Art Show 9 when it arrives in venues across Manchester, including the Whitworth, in May.
But on Saturday they said they were “outraged and appalled” by the university’s attempt to force Alistair Hudson to resign and would not be participating in the Manchester segment of the exhibition – organised every five years by London’s Hayward Gallery – in support of Hudson, Palestinians, political freedom and artistic expression.
The Guardian reported on Tuesday that Hudson had been asked to leave his post by the university after a series of complaints by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI). Sources said the university explicitly cited his response to the fallout from an exhibition that denounced Israel’s military operations in Gaza and its “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians. UKLFI told the Guardian it had “suggested that the university should take appropriate disciplinary action” against Hudson.
The critical statement, which was removed in August, was part of an exhibition, Cloud Studies, by Forensic Architecture, a Turner prize-nominated investigative agency, that explored how pollution, chemical attacks and the aftermath of explosions affect marginalised people in places around the world, including Palestine.
In a letter to Nancy Rothwell, the president and vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester, the 23 artists condemned the university’s response, saying it was a “direct attack on political freedom and artistic expression”.
Citing the university’s “capitulation to continued UKLFI pressure and demands”, they said its actions set a “very dangerous precedent” for cultural institutions, galleries and higher education. “Truth needs to be made public, and cultural spaces have to remain open for difficult discussions,” they wrote.
The letter added: “BAS 9 exhibition is structured around the curatorial framework of healing, care and reparative history; tactics of togetherness and imagining new futures, which is at odds with recent events.
“Our deep commitment to these themes under fear of censorship makes it impossible to continue our engagement with the University of Manchester given the current position of the institution.”
They said they would pull their work from the Manchester exhibition “unless meaningful reparative measures are taken”.
A spokesperson for Hayward Gallery Touring said they were in “open discussion” with the show’s artists and its curators, Irene Aristizábel and Hammad Nasar, “to decide next steps for Manchester”.
The University of Manchester said staffing matters “remain strictly internal to the university” and it would not comment on Hudson, whom it described as “our current Whitworth director”.
A spokesperson added: “We would, however, like to address the explicit criticism in the coverage that the university has in some way suppressed academic and artistic freedoms, or bowed to external pressures. We refute such claims entirely. Museums and galleries have traditionally been a space of experimentation and challenge and we hope that the Whitworth is a place where we can debate, discuss and disagree well.
“As a university and gallery, there are various rights and duties which apply across our work, including the protection of academic freedom, freedom of speech and expression and duties under equality laws (including the public sector equality duty). We work tirelessly to ensure that these rights, and our duties (including our public sector duties), are considered fully and carefully.”
