Prominent Australian artist Mike Parr has had his contract with Anna Schwartz Gallery terminated over a performance work that referenced the Israel-Gaza War.
The 78-year-old performance artist and printmaker has been represented by Jewish gallerist Anna Schwartz since 1986. His contract was terminated via email early on Sunday morning, following the performance on Saturday, December 2, Parr told ABC Arts.
"It's extraordinarily upsetting and deeply anxiety-provoking because the Schwartz's store … a huge amount of my life's work," he says.
In a statement, Schwartz confirmed the termination, saying: "Sadly I ended the association between Anna Schwartz Gallery and Mike Parr due to a serious breach of trust and difference of values."
Parr is known for his political art and has long used performance as a form of protest. He has made work on a range of sociopolitical issues over his 50-year career, including the detainment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the treatment of asylum seekers, colonial violence, and the impacts of climate change on the Amazon.
"My concern for these issues means that I can't not respond to what is happening now [in Gaza] and I would have thought that Anna would have understood and accepted that," Parr says.
He says the termination came as a shock but that "there were already indications that something had gone badly wrong".
What happened during the performance?
Titled Going Home, Parr's performance took place over four and a half hours from midday on Saturday. It was staged at Schwartz's gallery space in Melbourne's Flinders Lane as part of Parr's current exhibition there, titled Sunset Claws.
The performance involved Parr painting text on the walls of the gallery with his eyes shut. The text was read aloud by an assistant and drawn from essays taken from the London Review of Books, Guardian Australia and quotes from unattributed sources.
Parr told ABC Arts that Schwartz was aware of the general subject matter in advance and had expressed "all sorts of reservations and opinions" but ultimately gave it the go-ahead, telling him "the gallery would never censor its artists but completely support their position, even though the gallery itself may not endorse that position".
"She was saying, in effect, that the gallery recognised the importance of self-expression and artists' opinions and their need to address issues of significance to the culture," Parr says.
Following his termination, Parr says he feels he is being censored by the gallery.
Schwartz denied that allegation, telling ABC Arts: "I have never censored an artist's work and have not in this case."
"I have always supported any work and inherent ideas presented by artists of the gallery, however, I have never had to address such issues of hate and vilification, which were to me personally sickening and caused my termination of the ongoing representation of the work. This was, as all my decisions are, my own."
Parr rejects that assertion saying: "I do feel that I've been censored, and I think she's disingenuous to pretend that I haven't been."
"Over the 36 years of our association, we've always retained our independence and we come together on the basis of mutual respect for one another.
"I could always talk to [Anna] about my projects … she was always able to speak very supportively and give me the moral support that I needed to go on as an artist and I miss that."
Schwartz told ABC Arts that Parr's exhibition and the video recording of Saturday night's performance will remain on display at the Flinders St gallery until its scheduled end date of December 16.
Parr was initially asked to remove all work held by the gallery by the end of the year but asked for the deadline to be extended.
Schwartz confirmed the request would be granted, saying: "I have told him the works will be cared for until he has made arrangements. He asked for March. This, of course, is fine with me."
Parr, who has been solely represented by Schwartz, described the assurance as "immensely moving but desperately sad".
Who gets to comment?
Parr's performance was responding to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which he describes as "an issue of extraordinary volatility".
In a video recording of the performance, a gallery assistant reads a list of quotes to Parr, who paints them on the wall with his eyes closed. Some of the quotes are attributed to people, some are not.
"Israel was founded on the forced displacement of Palestinian people."
"Only Nazis do ethnic cleansing."
"I am told Hamas rapes women and cuts off the heads of babies."
In addition to drawing from media commentary, Parr says he also used the performance to write his own "anxious statements" about the conflict.
Parr was compelled by a conversation he had with Schwartz prior to the performance in which he alleges that she told him pro-Palestinian protests were "just young people virtue signalling".
"I said, Anna, that's intolerably patronising. It presupposes that young people are mindlessly led by purely impulsive reactions. I said 'I'm certain that many of these young people, if not all of these young people, are genuinely and desperately concerned about the issue and probably well informed about the issue,'" Parr says.
In response to the allegations, Schwartz told ABC Arts: "These alleged comments attributed to me are without any context and do not represent my thoughts, feelings or position."
In recent years, Parr has staged several works similar to Saturday's performance, in which he paints with his eyes closed, called "blind performances".
The words "Israel", "Palestine" and "apartheid" were among those painted during his performance of Going Home. In one section of the work about censorship, Parr painted over the text, covering the wall with red paint.
In attendance on Saturday was Schwartz's husband Morry, who owns Schwartz Media, the independent publishing house that produces The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, the Quarterly Essay and the Jewish Quarterly.
According to a source who was there but asked to remain anonymous, Morry Schwartz was present for most of part one and then left.
Are Australian artists being censored?
Kate Just is a well-known visual artist working at the intersection of craft and political activism. She is also a Senior Lecturer in Art at Melbourne University and a friend of Parr's.
Commenting on his termination, Just told ABC Arts: "Currently, artists who are critiquing the US or Israeli government or expressing solidarity with Palestinian civilians, are experiencing unprecedented art world censorship, [including] cancelling of their events and exhibitions, personal threats via direct messages, evictions from gallery tenancies, removal of funding, attempts to sell back their artwork, and calls to their galleries to drop them."
She says blowback is being felt across the Australian arts scene by artists who are using their work or social platforms to engage with the Israel-Gaza War.
"This is happening in Australia and in the art world globally to many artists who are speaking out with concerns around Palestine and the killing and displacement of civilians," she says.
Just curated a group exhibition in 2019 that included work by Parr for Buxton Contemporary in Melbourne's Southbank. The show, titled National Anthem, featured artists whose work critically addresses concepts about the Australian national identity.
"Mike Parr is one of Australia's most significant political artists, whose visceral performances potently agitate for deeper understanding of and questioning of the hostilities of our world," Just says.
"It is not uncommon for artists to experience repercussions, disagreement with or condemnation of our political opinions.
"However, the scale of current censorship and removal of opportunities begs the question, 'When do these incidents begin to be seen and understood as a very real threat to artistic freedom of expression and our rich and important culture of political debate in the arts?'"
Parr's performance and subsequent termination is the latest in a string of actions taken by Australian artists engaging with the Israel-Gaza war that has led to punitive action and public backlash.
Last month, three actors from Sydney Theatre Company's production of The Seagull appeared on stage wearing traditional Palestinian keffiyehs as a gesture of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The move precipitated the resignations of two of the company's prominent Jewish Board members, PR executive Judi Hausmann and Carla Zampatti CEO Alex Schumann.
The company issued a formal apology over the action and has offered the cast counselling.
Arts administrator Louise Adler spoke to the ABC's 7.30 program about the controversy.
"I think arts organisations need to have some clarity about the moral compromises they're prepared to make," she told 7.30.
"Actors, artists [and] writers have always had political views. The history is long of artists being part of the world they live in and bringing that world into the art they make.
"I'm not sure what we expect from contemporary theatre if we don't expect artists to engage with the issues of the day."
Despite the current climate and concerns around censorship, Just says: "It is clear that artists have always been political and will continue to be."
"As long as we exist, artists will make work that reflects and grapples with the issues of our time."
For Parr, it's a matter of conscience.
"People everywhere are responding to this. We're seeing massive demonstrations equivalent to the demonstrations against the first Iraq war and the second Iraq war … we're seeing huge demonstrations around the world demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and two-state resolution to this problem," he says.
"There are aspects of the community that are not prepared to tolerate the debate that we must [have], and that contravenes our democracy and all the benefit that they have drawn from it.
"And I think that that is unconscionable and cannot be accepted."
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