There are different viewpoints on what happened on Dec. 18th at NYC’s Gagosian Gallery when a group of protesters crashed a Anselm Kiefer exhibit wearing t-shirts with the Passover prayer line “Next Year in Jerusalem” in English, Hebrew and Arabic. There were four of them left when they were asked to leave. Then, it got ugly.
Before the gallery called the cops on them, the group was silent but ready to answer any questions the visitors may have — they were sponsoring a ship in the next flotilla to sail against the Israeli blockade. Viewpoint of the protesters: “We thought we were in an arena of ideas and that words on a t-shirt without any other provocation would be an acceptable method of free expression in response to Kiefer’s work.” The viewpoint of the gallery: “This is private property… We’re here to sell art.” And so, the cops made them leave.
Gallery visitor Ingrid Homberg, who stopped to speak with the group but was not part of it, was also told to leave. She refused, so the cops ejected her, forcefully. She was dragged across the floor, handcuffed crying and shaking and was taken to the emergency room with bruising on her arm. Some might call that inappropriate use of police force. Gagosian calls it an “unfortunate disturbance.”
What's the controversy? You're asked to leave a private gallery, you refuse to leave, and then you complain when you're forced to leave? If you want to risk arrest in order to protest, so be it. But don't complain when you in fact get arrested. It's part of the deal.
And, the Smithsonian is owned by the government, Larry Gagosian isn't. No First Amendment in someone's gallery.
I didn't say anything about the First Amendment. I just summarized what happened according to the people that were there.
If you read the whole article in the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-schor/gagosian-gallery-pulls-a_b_801033.html, you will see that there here were two separate incidents at Gagosian on Dec. 18. The second one, which I witnessed, occurred later in the day and had nothing to do with the first. It ended up with a lone women handcuffed , strapped to a gurney and shipped off anonymousl y to some hospital against her will. Whether she was "disturbed " or just plain angry at being followed and then terrified, is something I can't evaluate. The two incidents raise many issues but share two things: police brutality and a violation of civil liberties. It's not simply a matter of whether or not Gagosian had a right to ask them to leave, it's about the appalling treatment visited upon citizens by the police.