Artforum Staff Resign in Protest of Editor-in-Chief’s Axing
Prominent artists said they would boycott the magazine following David Velasco's dismissal after publishing an open letter in response to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Photo: Ocula.
At least four writers and editors at Artforum have resigned following the firing of Editor-in-Chief David Velasco, according to The New York Times.
Associate Editor Kate Sutton and Senior Editors Zack Hatfield and Chloe Wyma have quit, while contributor Emily LaBarge has 'severed ties', they said.
'The firing of David Velasco violates everything I had cherished about the magazine and makes my work there untenable,' Wyma shared on X.
Nearly 50 Artforum employees and contributors signed a letter demanding that Velasco be reinstated. They said his firing 'disaffirms the very mission of the magazine: to provide a forum for multiple perspectives and cultural debate.'
Artists Nicole Eisenman and Nan Goldin said they would no longer work with Artforum after Velasco's ousting.
'I have never lived through a more chilling period,' Goldin told The New York Times. 'People are being blacklisted. People are losing their jobs.'
The dismissal followed the publication of an open letter, which was not written by Artforum, that received some 8,000 signatures, including those of Goldin, Katharina Grosse, Simon Fujiwara, and other prominent artists.
It stated, 'We support Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the killing and harming of all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the end of the complicity of our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes.'
The letter was criticised for not explicitly condemning terror attacks by Hamas that resulted in the deaths of 1,400 Israelis, something Artforum publishers Danielle McConnell and Kate Koza tried to clear up in a subsequent post.
'We want to make clear that we unequivocally condemn the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, and we are distraught at the immense destruction and suffering of the civilians in Gaza,' they wrote.
They said the manner in which the open letter was published was 'not consistent with Artforum's editorial process.'
Discussing his dismissal, Velasco told The New York Times, 'I have no regrets.'
'I'm disappointed that a magazine that has always stood for freedom of speech and the voices of artists has bent to outside pressure,' he said.
A new open letter initiated by Jeremy Hodkin, editor of The Canvas, has been signed by nearly 6,000 people from the art world, including artists Georg Baselitz, Urs Fischer, Mickalene Thomas, Marina Abramović, and Francesco Clemente.
It says the art community must foster 'empathy and unity for all of the innocent civilians—both Israeli and Palestinian—tragically affected by the heinous actions of Hamas.'
The letter calls for 'opposing acts of terrorism' but does not call for an end to Israel's attack on Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of 8,000 Palestinians so far, according to the territory's Health Ministry. —[O]
