Reinstate Samia Halaby Retrospective NOW!

Arteidolia
January 2024

Samia Halaby in her studio, 2016 (Wikimedia)

A message from Samia Halaby:

“On the occasion of reaching over eleven thousand signers to the petition asking for the reinstatement of my retrospective at Indiana University I express admiring gratitude. Some of you are special close friends and friends of friends, some are colleagues and acquaintances, some met me at openings and some follow me on my Instagram, many are admirers of my work, many upset by suppression at universities, and many are young people who feel angry with the insensitive reaction to the massacre in Gaza and the West Bank. To all of you I owe respect for supporting me, a Palestinian who is proudly outspoken for Palestine. Your courage and solidarity is truly beautiful.

The medium of pictures, paintings in particular, has many uses in our society. My paintings are an attempt at being on the leading edge of research into the language of pictures universally. I consider that I am a Palestinian internationalist artist. I keep current politics out of my paintings. I put it in my posters and my discourse. I have made many banners and posters that bluntly and clearly describe my political stand. I do not forget that many young supporters who signed the petition are in search of an anchor, and are glad to know there is a history behind where they want to go. Start your investigations with the Paris Commune and its relationship to the Impressionists, then jump to the Constructivists and the Soviet revolution, and continue from there to the Industrial Union Movement and Abstract Expressionism in New York.”

Sign the petition to President Whitten  →