The open letter, published in Artforum on 19 October, declared: “We support Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the killing and harming of all civilians.” It was signed by thousands of artists, scholars and cultural workers, including the art world magazine’s editor, David Velasco.
A week later, Velasco was fired from the publication he had worked at for 18 years, reportedly after pushback from Martin Eisenberg, a major arts patron and Bed Bath & Beyond heir. In a post on Artforum that evening, the magazine’s publishers said that the pro-Palestine letter, which initially did not mention Hamas’s attack that killed 1,400 Israelis, was “not consistent with Artforum’s editorial process”. At least four Artforum editors have resigned in protest against Velasco’s firing.
