Around 30 anti-Israel protesters briefly disrupted the opening of a solo exhibition dedicated to Israeli artist Michal Rovner’s ongoing series, “Pragim,” at the global headquarters of blue chip art gallery Pace on March 7 before being escorted outside by gallery staff.
The incident follows acts of vandalism surrounding Pace’s promotion of Rovner. About a month prior, on the night between Friday, January 26, and Saturday, January 27, the gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood was defaced, tagged with graffiti and plastered with anti-Israel posters.
“We charge Pace Gallery and Zionist Michal Rovner with: genocide epistemicide plundering looting incitement dehumanization historical revisionism,” read one of the posters pasted onto 540 West 25th Street in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. “Intifada” and “Free Gaza” were also sprayed onto the building’s facade alongside spatters of red paint resembling blood.
“The vandalism was extensive enough to necessitate the gallery’s closure,” Pace announced in a statement on January 27. “We are a gallery that consists of a community of artists and employees, many of whom are actively engaged in socio-political issues and attuned to global events. With this diversity comes divergent viewpoints. In cases of disagreement, we remain committed to supporting meaningful civil discourse.”
“Pragim” is now on view at Pace through April 18.
The vandalism, carried out anonymously, was in response to Pace’s January 15 Instagram post about a Rovner video installation in Times Square titled “Signaling” (2023). Screenshots of comments to this Instagram post were pasted onto the gallery, which has represented Rovner for the past 20 years.
“Signaling” was first shown in December on the campus of the Bezalel Academy of Arts, where Rovner earned her degree, and was then screened simultaneously in Times Square and on the facade of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art during the weekend of January 12.
The exhibit marked 100 days of captivity for the 134 hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza, not all of whom are presumed to be alive. They were kidnapped during the October 7 atrocities when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed the border with Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 more, most of them civilians, amid horrific brutalities including rape, torture and mutilation.
In “Signaling,” rows of abstracted human silhouettes — a signature of Rovner’s work — wave their hands and move their bodies as red lights flicker from within them.
“These hand movements are a universal code for a call for help, a signal of distress. ‘Pay attention! I’m here, see me, don’t forget me,’” said Rovner of the work. “The color red is related to body heat, and its movement is like accelerated breathing, a beating pulse. It’s a color of urgency, danger, red lights that come on in emergency situations, alarm signals.”
Michal Rovner, winner of the Israel Prize seen after the Israel Prize ceremony in Jerusalem, on Israel’s Independence Day, on April 26, 2023. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
The artist is a 2023 Israel Prize winner who has had solo exhibitions at the Louvre, Art Institute of Chicago, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Jeu de Paume in Paris and Whitney Museum of American Art. She has also represented Israel at the 50th Venice Biennale.
The vandalism at Pace joined an ongoing wave of similar incidents at New York art galleries and institutions that began in December.
On December 6, Lévy Gorvy Dayan gallery — owned by Dominique Lévy, Brett Gorvy and Amalia Dayan, the granddaughter of former Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan — was vandalized after their written response to an open letter published in Artforum on October 19 that called for an end to “institutional silence around the ongoing humanitarian crisis,” without any mention of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. The gallery was plastered with a fake apology for its own Artforum letter that read, among other things, “We were wrong.”
In mid-January, several galleries in Chinatown (including 56 Henry, Essex Street, Fierman, King’s Leap, Lyles and King, Maxwell Graham and No Gallery) were plastered with posters as they were about to open their first exhibitions of the year. Messages read, “Don’t Sell Art to Zionists,” “Zionism is Terrorism,” and “Blood on Your Hands.”
No one has claimed responsibility for any of these acts, but two days after the Chinatown incidents, photos of the plastered galleries were shared by the Instagram account of a group called Writers Against the War on Gaza, saying it was “coordinated by an autonomous group of Palestinian and POC [people of color] actionists.” The same account issued a celebratory post on January 28 that “actionists shut down Pace gallery.”
New York museums have been targeted as well, including Neue Galerie (founded by Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress) and the Dia Art Foundation. On February 10, the Museum of Modern Art closed after between 500 and 800 protestors took over the atrium and protested the alleged investment of museum trustees in Israeli military technology. Two days later, an artist talk at the Jewish Museum between Israeli painter Zoya Cherkassky and museum director James S. Snyder, about the artist’s series and exhibition titled “7 October 2023,” was disrupted by protesters.
‘Transmission,’ by Michal Rovner, video on LCD screen. (All rights reserved, Michal Rovner/Artists Rights Society New York)
Rovner’s solo exhibition was planned in early 2023 and opened on March 7 as scheduled, despite the protestors. Presenting new works from her “Pragim” series, some of which have never before been shown, the exhibition will fill the first-floor gallery of Pace’s flagship space. Inspired by the wild poppies that grow near her studio on a farm situated between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the series includes prints, video works and installations.
“Rovner’s ‘Pragim’ series brings her poetic interpretation of nature to the state of our current moment,” said Marc Glimcher, CEO of Pace. “With staccato movement and fragile form, the poppy, a symbol of remembrance, becomes a formal element in these video and photographic tapestries of uncertainty.”
Poppies bloom in Israel between March and June, and are often confused with the red anemones that carpet fields in southern Israel in January and February — an attraction during the annual Darom Adom festival that didn’t occur this year due to the war.
“The ongoing war has impacted the artist’s perspective on her ‘Pragim’ works,” reads the exhibition press release, “as they now also powerfully reflect the state of unrest and anguish afflicting the region.”
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Despite vandalism and protests, NY gallery Pace showcases Israeli artist as planned - The Times of Israel
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