On Friday, Israel’s cabinet approved a six-week ceasefire agreement and partial hostage release deal with Hamas, temporarily bringing to an end a conflict that has wrought widespread death and destruction in Gaza.
Official statistics from the Gaza health ministry put the death toll there at more than 46,000, though experts have suggested that many more people there may have been killed by Israel’s airstrikes and ground invasion since Hamas’s attack in Israel on October 7, 2023. During that attack, Hamas killed more than 1,000 people and took more than 200 hostages.
As the war raged on in Gaza, with its impact spilling over into the West Bank and Lebanon, the art world was left reeling, as artists, curators, writers, and more all faced extreme consequences for voicing support for Israel or Palestine. Photographer Nan Goldin put it most succinctly when, in October 2023, she told the New York Times, “I have never lived through a more chilling period. People are being blacklisted. People are losing their jobs.”
Art exhibitions were canceled. Curators departed their jobs. Donors pulled funding. Open letters were signed. And the art world was upended, creating divisions that may be long-lived.
Below is a look back at 21 events that defined the art world’s response to the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel’s war in Gaza.
