Supporters are calling on the school to reinstate what would have been 87-year-old artist’s first retrospective in the US.
Over 5,000 people have signed a petition urging Indiana University at Bloomington (IU) to reinstate a canceled retrospective of Palestinian artist Samia Halaby. The show, titled Centers of Energy, was originally scheduled to open at the institution’s Eskenazi Museum of Art (EMA) on February 10, but according to a missive penned by a board member of the artist’s foundation, Madison Gordon, the school abruptly canceled the show via email in late December due to “safety concerns.”
Centers of Energy would have been the first retrospective of the 87-year-old abstract artist’s work in the United States. It was slated to include around 35 drawings, prints, and paintings created throughout the course of Halaby’s long career, spanning her time as a student at IU and Michigan State University (MSU) and her tenure as the first woman professor at the Yale School of Art.
