ART focused on Israel’s genocide in Palestine is set to be shown in Scotland after its exhibition south of the Border was cancelled following complaints from a lobby group.
Matthew Collings’ Drawings Against Genocide exhibition will open at the Merz Gallery in Sanquhar, in Dumfries and Galloway, on July 3 with the artist in attendance and set to speak.
The exhibition had been due to be shown at the Delta House Gallery in Wandsworth, London, in May but it was cancelled after an intervention from UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).
The lobby group – which has faced allegations of using legal pressure to silence pro-Palestine activism, particularly in the arts and cultural sectors – alleged that Collings’ artworks “appeared to include repeated antisemitic imagery and narratives”.
A statement from UKLFI said that they had a “range of concerns, including depictions that demonised Jews and Israelis, promoted conspiracy theories about Jewish control, and drew comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany”.
After the exhibition was cancelled, Collings told Al Jazeera that “nothing in my drawings for genocide is remotely antisemitic”.
“Of 130 drawings, 30 have recognisable public figures who are Jewish, and half of those people are heroes in my eyes,” Collings said.
“And the half that I criticise, I don’t criticise for being Jewish, I criticise them for supporting genocide.”
The exhibition comprises 130 drawings showing violence against Palestinians, with military and political leaders surrounded by blood, and Israeli soldiers alongside skulls. It debuted at Joseph Wales Studios in Margate earlier this year.
Earlier this week, a UN commission of inquiry concluded that Israel had deliberately targeted Palestinian children as part of "the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, and war crimes in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem".
Merz Gallery director Dr David Rushton said it is “important that galleries should not be held answerable to property owners and councils, and must be free to stand by artists who are prepared to hold truth to power”.
The gallery will also exhibit Scottish artist Jane Frere’s Erasure. The 2017 work – murals filling two walls highlighting the rise of the extreme right – was controversially altered by Edinburgh’s Summerhall Arts management last year to remove references to Nazis and a swastika symbol.
“Ironically it reminded me of how the Nazis removed modern art which they considered ‘degenerate’ in the Thirties,” Frere said.
Rushton said the upcoming exhibition “features two important strands of current art activity: one very immediate and urgent, strengthening response to the genocide in Gaza and now in Lebanon. The second, a broader response to how media has cultivated and engaged right-wing interventions to suppress cultural activity and freedom of speech.”
The exhibition of Collings’ and Frere’s works will be held at Merz Gallery, on Queens Road in Sanquhar, from July 3-5.
Collings is due to speak at the opening on July 3 at 5pm.
