When IU canceled Samia Halaby's retrospective last December, it ignited a firestorm. Coming in with that knowledge, students say Halaby's art was not what they expected.
(Courtesy of Oliver Jackson)
It could have been just a short walk across campus to Indiana University’s Eskenazi Museum of Art. Instead, 45 students, two professors and two reporters huddled outside at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning for a nine-hour round trip to Michigan State University.
They were going to see the first American retrospective of Palestinian artist Samia Halaby, whose exhibits have been displayed at the Guggenheim, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Detroit Institute of Art.
IU professors Alex Lichtenstein and David McDonald collect permission slips from students at 7:30 a.m. Unaccustomed to early Saturday mornings, many caught up on sleep during the ride. (Ethan Sandweiss)
The show was supposed to be Halaby’s second retrospective. The first would have been last spring at IU, where Halaby received her MFA at IU and taught painting. When the university canceled the show without public announcement in December over unspecified security risks, it inflamed campus and the art world.
David McDonald, an associate professor of folklore and ethnomusicology who studies Palestine, was eagerly anticipating the first retrospective at IU.
“Samia Halaby is one of the most famous Palestinian artists of the 20th century,” he said. “To have her here at Indiana University campus was an amazing opportunity for me, just as a scholar of Palestinian culture.”
Professor David McDonald brought his class "Soundtrack to Revolution" to Michigan. McDonald's own work has taken him to Palestine. (Ethan Sandweiss) Professor Alex Lichtenstein was an early and vocal critic of IU's decision to cancel Halaby's retrospective, "Samia Halaby: Centers of Energy." His class is learning about curation. (George Hale)
Its cancellation was one of several events that led to major protests against the administration at IU. It was at these protests that McDonald ran into Alex Lichtenstein, a professor of history and American studies who planned to teach a class on exhibit curation in the fall.
“Serendipitously, both Professor McDonald and I were on Dunn Meadow during the protests in April,” Lichtenstein said. “We started talking to one another, and I said, ‘I'm really thinking of taking a group of students up to see the Samia Halaby exhibit this fall, because they weren't able to see it at IU.’”
“We could have celebrated the achievements of an incredible alumnus and former faculty member, but we missed it,” McDonald said. “It was a missed opportunity, but good news is at least the students on this bus got a chance to see it.”
The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. Curators here planned their retrospective show in tandem with the Eskenazi Museum in Bloomington. (Ethan Sandweiss)
Lichtenstein is teaching a class on curating exhibits. McDonald’s students are learning about protest art and music. So the show is directly applicable, but Lichtenstein says if IU hadn’t canceled Halaby’s exhibit, she probably would’ve flown under his radar.
“I guess in some ways it is a political act,” he said. “I want to demonstrate that you were denied this by the administration at IU, so we're going to make sure you have the opportunity here at MSU, which for whatever reason had the courage to go ahead with the exhibit.”
IU is still paid for the trip, which Lichtenstein said cost around $8,000.
"Samia Halaby: Eye Witness" opened at the Broad Museum in June. (Ethan Sandweiss)
To be sure, MSU has a claim to the artist as well. It’s where Halaby received her first master’s degree in 1960. Rachel Winter, an Assistant Curator at MSU’s Broad Museum of Art, worked for two years with Halaby to put the show together.
“I think it's very important that it's here because it was at MSU that she really dug into this journey to become an abstract painter,” Winter said. “I think Samia is an artist who hasn’t necessarily received her due in the art world.”
Halaby is an abstract painter. Her art suggests movement, light and nature in ways that Winter describes as rational and methodic.
IU students attended a lecture on Halaby's art before taking a guided tour of the exhibition. (Courtesy of Oliver Jackson)
Winters held a lecture for the students, explaining Halaby’s background and her theories about abstraction (a “visual language that reflects reality.”)
“I think of the show as a choose your own adventure,” she said. “There's a lot of different layers to her work and to the ways that you can engage with the work.”
In the discussion over the cancellation, Halaby’s politics and activism for Palestine took center stage. Some speculated her criticism of Israel contributed to IU’s decision to cancel her show, although the university denies this. Others couldn’t help noticing how the cancellation came on the heels of lawmakers pressuring campus to fight antisemitism.
Winter guiding IU students (Courtesy of Oliver Jackson)Assistant curator Rachel Winter said she curated the exhibit to "address the breadth and depth of the many places" that shaped Halaby's experience. (George Hale)
Some of Halaby’s work has titles such as “Occupied Jerusalem,” but you couldn’t tell it’s political just by looking at it. Other pieces with titles like “Boston Aquarium” and “Morning in Your Heart” don’t drop any political clues whatsoever.
This piece labeled "Occupied Jerusalem" gives little indication of its political subtext aside from the caption. (Ethan Sandweiss)
Students on the trip say that’s not what they expected.
“It was kind of shocking to find out that it was just an art exhibit,” said Louis Rohlfing, a freshman in McDonald’s class. “Obviously there were political meanings that you could glean from it, but nothing that really called for a cancelation.”
Freshman Emma Broach said the trip to MSU changed her perspective on IU’s cancellation.
“Their response last year made me frustrated now that I see what her art actually is,” she said. “It was kind of just simple art.”
Louis Rohlfing, an international studies major, said he was expecting Halaby's work to be more overtly political. (Ethan Sandweiss)International studies major Emma Broach said she appreciated the beauty and simplicity of Halaby's art. (Ethan Sandweiss)
But IU saw the exhibit’s potential to inflame. Other faculty have followed Lichtenstein and McDonald by announcing trips to MSU. Halaby’s show is on display at the Broad Museum until December 15th.
Steven Bridges, interim director of the Broad Museum, didn’t say whether his staff had similar discussions about security threats but said he worked closely with MSU so the exhibit could proceed safely.
“The museum is very committed to being an open forum for expression and site for civil dialog, for the expression of different ideas, the exchange of ideas in a respectful and civil atmosphere,” Bridges said. “I think these values have always been important but perhaps are even more important today.”
George Hale contributed reporting.
Lichtenstein stands by as students disembark from their return trip to Bloomington at 9:00 p.m. (Ethan Sandweiss)
