The Blogs: Gaza comes to an art gallery near you

***Screenshot of an exhibition room in the Royal Hibernian Academy Dublin, 2025***

I grew up surrounded by art.

My creative-minded mother installed spotlights in our semi-detached house hallway. Her idea was to light up stair wall panels that displayed her artistic experiments on ‘Daler’ paper and silk fabrics.

As pre-pubescent child she took me to ROSC, an industrial-large international art exhibition in Dublin in the late 1960s. I’ve been art-aware ever since, looking, buying and appreciating.

Each year I try to get to the (Dublin) Royal Hibernian Academy annual art exhibition. (I even submitted some work by friends to the Academy panel judges – with no success!).

The RHA annual is Ireland’s largest open submission exhibition, featuring painting, print, sculpture, drawing, photography, mixed media and architectural works. The selection committee is made up of six practicing artist members of the RHA. Artworks are presented anonymously and judged solely on merit.

Gaza comes to an art gallery near you

This year a fellow art-appreciator accompanied me to the 195th RHA annual.

In the shrill, anti-Israel political zeitgeist, we wondered how partisan prejudiced politics might be inserted into this year’s exhibition. We weren’t “disappointed” by the RHA selection committee.

One museum-size room had a sign outside stating “viewer discretion required”. A faux-hallway entrance into one of the spacious display rooms was created. That design feature was probably to ease any disbelieving eyes before the possible visual shock.

***Screenshot of ‘Palestinian Angel: ‘Brother’ by ANTONIO CARTY***

A high wall held three similar graphic cut out images: tightly swaddled, bloodied, cherub-like dead children.

The implication of the title – Palestinian Angel – was that three innocent children got killed / “martyred” / murdered (pick your verb) – by “sadistic Israel soldiers” in the Gaza war. The leaders of Hamas publicly stated they wanted many “martyrs” for Palestine. In a message to Hamas leaders in Qatar, Sinwar maintained that thousands of civilian casualties “are necessary sacrifices.” (1)

Art as Promotion of Propaganda

Did we really need the undue visual emphasis of three similar savage-scarred images? Perhaps one dead child in the presence of their parents and siblings might have packed a better punch?

That proposed family curation idea might have provided a better Gazan-reality context. It would have taken us from mere abstract politics towards the existential wounding of hurting humanity.

The dead “cherubs” tableau trio could have been from any contemporary, less politically publicized wars: Ukraine, Russia, Lebanon or Yemen. Only the title – ‘Palestinian Angel ‘– placed them in some geographic-politico setting.

These three “portrait” pieces were really an example of ‘art as propaganda’: simplistic, accusatory reportage taken out of context. What did the artist hope to achieve? Anger? Action? It may well further advance angry antisemitism from middle class pro-Palestinians in Ireland.

Who will buy such art? Where could such unsightly, gross graphic art get hung? Hardly in someone’s sitting room or dining room. Nor in any Dublin business boardroom.

Maybe some woke curator at IMMA – Irish Museum of Modern Art – will spend Arts Council funds on it? Perhaps some Islamic jihad foundation will buy it?

Among the hundreds of paintings and sculptures, I saw no reference to equally troubling / challenging images from the Israeli perspective of October 7th..

Perhaps no brave counter-narrative artist submitted any work from that painful perspective due to “Zionist taint” accusation fears? In the current pro-Palestine / anti-Israel narrative, Hamas’ hostages (dead and alive) have no cause to be represented at the Exhibition.

Screenshot of “Massacre of the Innocents,” 2023.Credit Zoya Cherkassky & Fort Gansevoort, New York

Israeli artists portray their perspectives.

Will the wider world be “allowed” to view Israeli artists nuanced framing about why thousands of Palestinians and many Israels got killed and injured, including the ‘Palestinian Angels’. (2)

I’d be really interested to hear the opinions of ordinary Arab people responding to the ‘Palestinian Angel” art piece. Might any Middle Eastern viewers possibly see it as exploitative? The world of Palestinian artists is also about being uprooted from their homeland, leaving behind their home, studio, family and friends. (3)

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