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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Lanre Bakare Arts and culture correspondent

Two artists withdraw work from Barbican show in row over Gaza talk

Exterior of the Barbican building
The Barbican’s chief executive, Claire Spencer, said she recognised the controversy over hosting the talk ‘created significant concern about artistic freedom’. Photograph: John Bracegirdle/Alamy

Two artists have withdrawn their work from a critically acclaimed Barbican exhibition because of the institution’s decision to pull out of hosting a speech about the Israel-Gaza conflict, which its chief executive acknowledged had caused “significant concern about artistic freedom”.

The French-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada and the Filipino artist Cian Dayrit requested the Barbican take down two works each from Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, leaving large gaps in a major show.

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