The Museum of Fashionable Artwork (MoMA) in Manhattan unexpectedly closed its galleries to the general public at round 3:45pm Saturday, February 10, after over 500 pro-Palestinian protesters took over the constructing’s second-floor atrium for an enormous demonstration.
Co-organized by a number of advocacy teams and activists who staged a previous December 27 action at John F. Kennedy Airport, the demonstration included quite a lot of ways. Beginning at 3:30pm, organizers cut up as much as distribute over 1,000 custom-printed imitation MoMA pamphlets calling out 5 museum trustees — Leon Black, Larry Fink, Paula Crown, Marie-Josée Kravis, and Ronald S. Lauder — and their alleged monetary and company investments into Israeli military weaponry, surveillance know-how, and “conservative values.” Shortly afterwards, tons of of demonstrators started a sit-in within the atrium.
A bunch of demonstrators unveiled a banner from the second flooring overlooking the museum’s foyer and rear exit that learn “MoMA Trustees Fund Genocide, Apartheid, and Settler Colonialism” for folks on the primary flooring to view.
From the third and fifth flooring, further banners — calling for an instantaneous ceasefire, a free Palestine, and for all prisons to be emptied — have been launched from the viewing ledges, suspended alongside artist Carolina Caycedo’s present show of fishing web sculptures.
“Free, free Palestine,” chanted protesters after the indicators have been unveiled, adopted by a bunch studying of a passage from the imitation pamphlet addressed to guests that elaborated on the premise of the protest and the choice to criticize the museum particularly.
Inside lower than quarter-hour, MoMA safety closed the galleries, started turning away individuals who needed to enter, and allowed guests to exit. Members of the press have been allowed into the constructing at roughly 4:45pm.
The MoMA sit-in completed at round 5:10pm, after which the remaining demonstrators filed out of the museum and commenced marching uptown. Among the many six squad automobiles that have been onsite upon exit, dozens of would-be MoMA guests have been lined up exterior the museum ready for entry. Three safety workers members confirmed with Hyperallergic that the museum was closed for the remainder of the night whereas organizers handed out remaining pamphlets to the folks ready exterior.
Many individuals have been confused concerning the museum remaining closed with an hour and a half left within the day after the demonstration dispersed. A person exterior started repeatedly screaming “fuck the Palestinians” as the road exterior started to skinny out, whereas one other man congratulated the organizers handing out flyers for “getting the job accomplished.”
At present’s motion at MoMA coincided with one other demonstration that drew over 300 folks exterior the Brooklyn Museum, organized by Inside Our Lifetime Palestine (WOL Palestine). No less than 4 protesters have been arrested there, as confirmed by Hyperallergic on the scene.
Each actions additionally occurred similtaneously the discharge of an open letter signed by greater than 100 NYC cultural staff from organizations together with the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Studio Museum protesting the “the disgraceful silence of our establishments as Israel commits genocide in Gaza.”
“Whereas the museums and cultural establishments of our metropolis declare to carry commitments to justice, social motion, and fairness, their silence has rendered them complicit within the killing of over 27,000 folks in Palestine, with 1000’s extra trapped underneath rubble from bombings since October 7, 2023,” the letter reads.
MoMA has not but responded to Hyperallergic‘s request for remark.
