In June, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) found itself in a predicament. Its south London building had been occupied by students protesting against the war in Gaza, rendering works of art, staff and visitors unsafe, the public gallery said. The only option? To close until the autumn.
Outcry ensued. Many criticised the protesters for targeting an institution whose politics are broadly aligned with the campaigners, saying their methods were misguided. Others, however, including two artists who were showing at the gallery when it closed, spoke out in support of the campaign. “Some things are rightfully more important right now,” the artist Mark Corfield-Moore posted on Instagram.

CCA, which is located on the campus of Goldsmiths University, has links to Zak and Candida Gertler. Goldsmiths for Palestine, the group behind the occupation, alleges that the couple are personal friends of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and donors to his political campaigns. The Gertlers did not respond to a request for comment.

Goldsmiths for Palestine also identified a £30,000 investment by the university in Nice Ltd, a surveillance company that had “derived a large portion of its revenue” from arms companies that provide munitions to the Israeli military. Goldsmiths says it is now reviewing its investment policy, but the situation highlights the knife edge that institutions now find themselves sitting on.

Fossil fuel firms, Big Pharma and arms manufacturers have been the main targets of protests in recent years, but the Israel-Gaza war is fast becoming a flashpoint. Candida Gertler’s involvement in the Outset Contemporary Art Fund, which she co-founded, has prompted artists, writers and other cultural workers to boycott the charity, including some of those exhibiting at the Venice Biennale this year. The Outset Fund declined to comment but pointed to a statement on its website clarifying that the charity is governed by a board of seven trustees who all have an equal vote; no one trustee donates more funding than 3% of the overall turnover each year.

Last November, the Zabludowicz Collection closed its London project space after years of boycott campaigns over its ties to Israel (though the organisation denied there was a link between the closure and the campaigns).

Hamstrung by deep public funding cuts as well as a stagnant philanthropic landscape, institutions are now trying to balance essential support with a shift in moral compass, within the art world and in society at large. “The reality is the funding situation is critical,” says Leslie Ramos, a philanthropy adviser and the author of Philanthropy in the Arts: A Game of Give and Take. “More institutions are at risk of closing. Museums fear taking money and offending anyone, and donors are terrified of giving money away, or at least giving money away publicly. We are living in a culture of fear.”

Adding to the complexities, a younger generation of artists are the ones spearheading many of these campaigns against problematic corporate sponsors, meaning arts organisations must balance their need for money with a pool of emerging creatives who are not afraid to protest.

Read more at: Cash-strapped museums struggle with ‘moral reckoning’ over sponsors