An exhibition in Melbourne concerning the ongoing conflict in Gaza has become the latest lightning rod for debate over artistic expression and freedom of speech. “The Cave, The Flood“, an installation by artist Leslie Eastman, has come under fire after reporting in The Australian and elsewhere said it displayed “a huge inverted red triangle made popular by Hamas”.
Liberal Senator James Paterson, various security academics and Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive Alon Cassuto all condemned the work in the article, which was published with the headline: “Melbourne gallery’s Hamas symbol art ‘is legitimising a terror group’”.
Paterson told The Australian: “It is well and truly pushing the bounds of art, good taste and potentially even the law to appropriate an image used by the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s militant wing, to designate Israeli targets on the 7th of October”. Cassuto said: “the idea that an exhibition would (promote) a symbol of their violence and barbarity is disturbing”.
Speaking to Crikey, Eastman said his piece was inspired by a trip to Jerusalem in February 2023.
“None of [the exhibit] was a celebration of October 7,” he said. “I’m no supporter of Hamas.”
Eastman said he visited the Dome of the Rock, a shrine in Jerusalem built in the late seventh century CE, on the trip.
“I’ve always been fascinated by that particular precinct, the Al-Aqsa precinct, because of the fact that it’s this incredible sort of pivot point … which is celebrated by the three Abrahamic faiths,” he said.
“The main thing I was thinking of is this idea of the divine reaching, coming to a pivot point on the earth. You know, it’s an incredible idea that is embodied in the Dome of the Rock and in the rock itself … none of that, of course, is easily translatable, and it requires people to actually look and to reflect.”
Eastman, who frequently uses light installations in his work, said the “inverted pyramid” at the centre changed colour throughout the day, depending on the level of light it was receiving.
“So in the morning it’s white. In the middle of the day, it’s sort of gentle, kind of lavender pink. None of this is recognised in any of the attacks [on the work],” he said. “It’s only after the gallery is closed [at sunset] that you get that kind of intensely red structure, which is the one photograph they’ve repeated over and over again.”
“The work was intended as a poetic and abstract form with multiple references. There is not a singular reading of the work,” gallery owner Hayden Stuart said. “Like all abstract art, it reflects what the viewer brings to it. Therefore, we had no expectations about a potential response.”
In addition to the structure causing the controversy, the exhibition features the words of Israeli historian Ilan Pappé and the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour.
Both Eastman and Stuart said they had received anonymous threats, including death threats, over email in the aftermath of the reporting.
“I believe the response I have received for exhibiting Leslie’s work shows the risk artists and galleries take when expressing their political opinions through their exhibitions,” Stuart said, calling the response “a sustained intimidatory campaign” that is “misrepresenting and defaming the work, the artist and the gallery”.
“There’s no doubt that I’ve been vocal and critical [of Israel] over the past 10 months,” Eastman said. “I can be critical of the policies of the State of Israel, but I’m a great reverer of the Jewish religion, its people and their astonishing achievements, and I’m completely aware of their history of suffering. There is absolutely no way that I would do a work that would in any way condone terrorism or antisemitism. I’m completely opposed to that.”
Eastman and Stuart declined to answer questions put to them by The Australian, Daily Mail Australia and The Jewish Independent.
“I could see straightaway from their questions what the angle was, this completely reductive
reading of what I think is quite a complex and nuanced piece of work,” Eastman said.
The conflict in Gaza has roiled the arts and culture community in Australia as much any other. Recently, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the State Library of Victoria and the Sydney Theatre Company have been accused of silencing artists who comment on the conflict.
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