Four Artists Withdraw From Whitney Biennial Over Board Member's Ties to Tear Gas

Since March, there have been protests at the museum and calls from artists and scholars for the museum to remove the trustee, Warren Kanders, who owns a company that distributes law-enforcement equipment, the Safariland Group. Kanders has vigorously defended the group, but one artist selected for the Biennial declined to participate before the exhibit opened because of Kanders’ business. Dozens of others called for Kanders to resign, even as they took part.

In a letter to the Whitney Biennial curators that was first reported Friday by Artforum, the four artists, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Meriem Bennani, Nicole Eisenman and Nicholas Galanin, said they were angry when they learned of Kanders’ ties to Safariland but “were well into fabrication of major pieces” for the Biennial and decided to forge ahead.

“The Museum’s continued failure to respond in any meaningful way to growing pressure from artists and activists has made our participation untenable,” the four wrote in a copy of the letter provided to The New York Times. “The Museum’s inertia has turned the screw, and we refuse further complicity with Kanders and his technologies of violence.”

The letter from the artists came two months before the Biennial was scheduled to close on Sept. 22, and two days after Artforum published an essay by artist Hannah Black and writers Ciarán Finlayson and Tobi Haslett titled “The Tear Gas Biennial,” which called for artists to boycott the exhibition.

In a written statement Friday, Adam Weinberg, the Whitney’s director, acknowledged the artists’ letter to the curators.

“The Whitney respects the opinions of all the artists it exhibits and stands by their right to express themselves freely,” the statement said. “While the Whitney is saddened by this decision, we will of course comply with the artists’ request.”

Kanders, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

The museum said it had reached out to artists over their requests to remove works, among them a large-scale sculpture by Eisenman called “Procession,” which sprawls across the sixth-floor terrace. Also outside on the fifth floor is a “video viewing” station by Bennani called “Mission Teens,” which follows a group of teenage schoolgirls in Rabat, Morocco.

The Biennial curators chose to include a 10-minute video called “Triple-Chaser” by London-based activist collective Forensic Architecture with Praxis Films, which is run by filmmaker Laura Poitras. The piece addresses the controversy over Kanders and was named after a type of tear-gas grenade manufactured by Safariland that has allegedly been used against civilians at the U.S.-Mexico border and elsewhere.

Late last year, the art publication Hyperallergic published photos showing metal canisters marked with the company’s name, which were said to have been found at a site where U.S. authorities used tear gas to disperse hundreds of migrants who were running toward a crossing from Tijuana to San Diego.

Whitney employees signed a letter expressing dismay at the tear-gas connection. Kanders replied with a letter of his own expressing pride in Safariland, which also sells protective suits and armor, and adding that the company plays no role in deciding how its products are used.

In a letter last winter to staff members and trustees, Weinberg wrote that the museum has “a critical and urgent” role in recognizing “unheard and unwanted voices” but added that it “cannot right all the ills of an unjust world.”

And about two weeks before the Biennial opened in mid-May, roughly two-thirds of the 75 participating artists and collectives added their names to a letter written by academics and critics that urged the museum to remove Kanders from his position as vice chairman of the board.

On the opening night of the Biennial, protesters draped a black banner reading “When We Breathe We Breathe Together” from an upper floor of the museum. Later they marched to Kanders’ home in Greenwich Village, taking with them a rolling installation in the form of a 5-foot-tall silver cylinder emblazoned with the words “tear gas.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Four Artists Withdraw From Whitney Biennial Over Board Member's Ties to Tear Gas

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