UK's Royal Academy facing boycott over decision to remove Gaza-inspired works

Two works about the war in Gaza were removed after a Jewish organisation claimed they contain anti-Semitic messaging

Two works were removed from the Royal Academy's Young Artist's Summer Show after complaints from the Board of Deputies. Getty.

A leading art museum in London faces artist-led boycotts after it removed two works highlighting the war in Gaza from its summer show.

Prominent UK artists, actors and filmmakers wrote an open letter to the Royal Academy of Arts on Monday, accusing the museum of “lending support to a racist, anti-Palestinian campaign”.

The works made by students aged under 19 for the museum’s annual Young Artists Summer Show were removed after the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the UK's largest Jewish organisation, said they contained “anti-Semitic tropes and messaging”.

Filmmaker Mike Leigh, fashion designer Bella Freud, Royal Academicians Jock McFadyen, Rana Begum and Oona Grimes, US artist Nan Goldin, actor Juliet Stevenson and musician Brian Eno are among the hundreds of creatives who condemned the removal of the works in the letter, which has attracted more than 600 signatures.

“We artists and human rights defenders, many of us Jewish, condemn the shameful decision of the Royal Academy of Arts to censor artworks by young artists that respond to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza” the letter said.

One of the works removed was the photograph of a “Not in Our Name” placard, commonly held by Jews who oppose Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Vice President of the Board of Deputies Andrew Gilbert noted that the artist, whose name is Kausar, appeared to be “non-Jewish”, in a July letter to the Royal Academy.

The second work showed women screaming with a swastika overhead. The comparison of the Palestinian issue to the Holocaust is deemed anti-Semitic by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism.

The Board of Deputies also highlighted a third work from the flagship Summer Show, which the RA did not remove.

The Board of Deputies said it was “aware of the long and admirable tradition of anti-war art”, and that it was sure the artists in question had not intended the works to be anti-Semitic. But it feared that displaying the works “risks giving the impression that the RA is taking a political stance on a very controversial issue”.

Jewish artists condemning the Royal Academy's move said it amounted to the “erasure” of the Jewish protest movement against Israel’s military action in Gaza.

“Many of us have joined the Jewish bloc at marches in London that have called for a ceasefire in Gaza,” they wrote in the open letter, published by Artists for Palestine UK. “The Royal Academy has colluded with the erasure of Jewish contribution to solidarity with Palestinians.

“Far from protecting Jews, the RA is lending support to a racist, anti-Palestinian campaign that aims to silence expressions of support for Palestinian people,” the letter said.

The letter’s signatories said the RA would face further “peaceful grassroots measures” if it did not explain the “measures it would take to repair the harm it has done”.

“British arts institutions have the ethical, historical and legal duty to uphold freedom of expression and anti-discrimination.

“Those that fail to meet these obligations have, rightly, faced peaceful grassroots measures including artist-led boycotts in order to defend the democratic functioning of our cultural spaces."

In an earlier statement responding to the Board of Deputies' complaint, the Royal Academy apologised for “any hurt and distress” caused by the artworks.

“We recognise that an exhibition for young people and artwork by young people is not an appropriate environment for volatile public discourse.

“We feel that by continuing to display these artworks, with limited opportunity to provide context or discourse, we would risk causing undue upset and could put people at risk.”