Raved-about art show closed by gallery after Israel lobby attacks and threats

Artist Matthew Collings, who used to work as a BBC art critic but now concentrates on his own art, has an exhibition of his work underway in London. Art critic Waldemar Januszczak described it as:

One of those rare art displays that feels as if it’s doing something art has never done before in ways that have never previously been tried.

Correction: he had an exhibition underway. That was until the Israel lobby decided that it didn’t like it and began to make trouble. They allegedly threatened the owner of the gallery, the owner of the building that houses the gallery and Collings himself. The Zionist bullying machine rarely misses an opportunity. 

Zionist bullying exposed

In a post on his Facebook page, Mr Collings described the art world’s ‘rave reviews’ of his exhibition. He then described his experience of the Israeli lobby’s war on the exhibition. He named three people he considers responsible for this aggression.

Collings said:

The lunatics and the show

A cautionary tale.

Hello my friends. My show “The Matthew Collings Holistic Art Experience” was taken down today three weeks before the date it was due to close. The owner of the building loves the show, is very thoughtful and bright, and thought up a wonderfully effective display idea.

But as the curator texted me, the owner “has too much going on and doesn’t want to worry about some lunatics.” What lunatics? I know three of them by name. Dan Leon, artist; Oliver Malin art critic; Dominic Blake; also an art critic.

They all falsely claim my work is antisemitic.

The art critic of the Sunday Times gave it a rave review and wrote that he thought I should get the Turner Prize for it. And the former director of Tate Britain was kind enough and interested enough in the work to interview me about it approvingly and at length before a live audience. Thames & Hudson is excited about the possibility of a book based on it.

The Turner Prize for antisemitism, antisemitism celebrated by Tate Britain, and Thames & Hudson helping a popular readership appreciate art by showing it a lot of antisemitism, is a line up of surreal unlikely nonsensical scenarios.

But that’s exactly what the fake “antisemitism” scam is about. Bizarre unlikeliness is what characterises it. Nobody involved believes any of it either the false accusers or the falsely accused. But in the end the aim of silencing criticism of Israel is achieved by wearing down and exhausting the targeted people. I’m the target, the curator is the target, the building owner is the target. These three lunatics targeted us. They’re not connected otherwise, they have contrasting MOs, the last guy has pretended he’s having a nervous breakdown because he’s horrified to be associated with the second guy.

They’re not three amigos. But they are three accusers. They share the aim to shut down resistance in a cultural context to the crimes of Israel. Civilised language, obscene language, mad language was their currency between them. They succeeded in their shared aim using contrasting approaches but the same ammo – weaponised antisemitism – because the mad and the obscene are hard to deal with.

Once the mad and the obscene erupt on your doorstep and in your house you don’t know where it’s gonna go.
Who wants to have that to cope with every day?

Art for a cause

It’s not hard to see why supporters of Israel would want to target Matthew Collings, as he is a relentless critic of its crimes and of those who collude in them. In another post on his page he wrote last week that:

We all have social media platforms. If you’re an artist yours should be buzzing with resistance to Israel. Your art should have at least some of that, too.

The artists that don’t have either are incomprehensible as human beings let alone as artists.

And in a post yesterday, he took on the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam that the Israel lobby coordinated against Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour leader:

One of Mr Collings’s many supporters described the closure of his exhibition as:

The usual zionist bullying threatening attacks they are known for in Britain when they don’t like someone speaking out about their abuses.

Fellow artist Paul Farmer described the attack on the show as “appalling” and sent his solidarity.

The Israel lobby has turned attacks on its critics into an industry. Zionist bullying particularly target art and culture. The ‘UK Lawyers for Israel’ (UKLFI) group, which has attacked everything from a display of plates painted by Palestinian children to Netflix, is currently being investigated for vexatious threats.

The so-called ‘Campaign against Antisemitism’ (CAA), which has boasted of its role in the Starmer regime’s ban on non-violent protest group Palestine Action, is also under regulatory investigation.

Both have been described by human rights group Cage International as “Britain’s apartheid apologists”. It is unclear whether either group has a role in the cancellation of Matthew Collings’s exhibition, but it would fit their modus operandi.

Featured image supplied by the author