Philanthropist Candida Gertler has stepped down from Outset Contemporary Art Fund and all voluntary positions at arts institutions in the U.K. The move comes a month after the Gertler name was removed from the Goldsmiths Center for Contemporary Art (CCA), a free public gallery in London, following several months of protest actions.
Announcing her departure in an open letter addressed to the arts community in the U.K., Gertler said her decision is “an act of principled protest against the alarming rise of antisemitism and the tacit normalization of hate within physical and online spaces meant to foster creativity and inclusion.”
“I can no longer stand silent when institutions, intimidated by violent and aggressive activism that dismisses dialogue, or any kind of communication fails to uphold the foundational values of equality and respect,” she said.
Gertler has been the subject of multiple protests this year by Strike Outset, a group that protested Candida’s involvement with Outset, which she co-founded in 2003 with Yana Peel to fund a wide range of arts initiatives. (Peel resigned in 2012.) Strike Outset demanded that Outset close its Israel chapter and “end their financial and ideological support for militarized settler-colonialist operations in Palestine such as the IDF and JNF.”
Goldsmiths CCA was forced to close over the summer after an activist group, Goldsmiths for Palestine, occupied by the building, shutting down its usual program in early June. The group called for Goldsmiths to “cut all ties” with Candida and Zak Gertler, donors after whom one of the galleries in the CCA building was named. In an open letter outlining the aims of their protest, Goldsmiths for Palestine accused the Gertlers of being “directly complicit in enabling genocide.”
On October 3, the group announced on Instagram that it was calling off its boycott of Goldsmiths CCA following the news that the institution had removed the Gertler name from its gallery.
In her statement, Gertler said she could no longer “lend my name or efforts to a sector that does not take a resolute stand against hatred and the silencing of a plurality of views.” She described “hate-filled, often libelous content” that was published, although she did not specify where.
“To those who regard this as a victory I urge you to ask yourselves what this actually has achieved for the people you wish to help,” she added.
In an announcement of Gertler’s resignation on Instagram, Strike Outset called her decision a win for its movement, composed of “various campaigns to refuse the art world’s normalization of Israel’s genocide and occupation in Palestine.” It also noted that Gertler did not directly refer to Palestine or Palestinians in her statement.
“Such erasure reflects the violent logic upholding apartheid and must be categorically rejected,” it said. “This letter of resignation intentionally obfuscates the demands of the strike and the urgent concerns driving it.” It pledged to continue boycotting Outset until it closes its Israel chapter.
Strike Outset and Goldsmiths of Palestine are both publicly involved in a planned demonstration that will take place outside Tate Britain tomorrow evening during a ceremony for the announcement of the winner of this year’s Turner Prize.
They and other groups, including Artists and Culture Workers LDN, are demanding that Tate ends any existing contracts it has with Barclays and Hewlett-Packard, both subject to the BDS movement, and that the institution divests from Outset Contemporary Art Fund, the Zabludowicz Art Trust, and Zabludowicz Art Projects. One of the Turner Prize’s four nominees, Jasleen Kaur, was one of over 1,000 artists and art workers to sign an open letter iterating this demand.
Describing itself as “an alternative ceremony,” the demonstration will feature a program of talks. So far, Barnaby Raine from Jewish Solidarity with Palestine, art critic Zarina Muhammad, and artist and activist Zita Holbourne are confirmed speakers.
