UK artist defends Drawings Against Genocide' show after cancellation

Matthew Collings, an English artist, has produced over 3,000 drawings since shifting away from art commentary. Since October 2023, about a third of the drawings have focused on Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. A planned London show titled Drawings Against Genocide was cancelled after UK Lawyers for Israel intervened, claiming the images were anti-Semitic. The exhibit contains 130 drawings portraying violence against Palestinians, including blood-bathed military, political, and business leaders. Collings says the title makes the target clear and that the work opposes genocide rather than Jews. He denies using anti-Semitic tropes and says the show includes Jewish public figures, many portrayed as heroes.

"Since October 2023, a good third of them have focused on Israel's genocide against Palestinians. Many were to be displayed in a May iteration of his show, Drawings Against Genocide, at a London gallery this month. However, the show was abruptly cancelled following an intervention by a group called the UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), which claimed the images were anti-Semitic. The exhibit, which debuted under its current title in Margate earlier this year at Joseph Wales Studios, is comprised of 130 drawings that depict violence against Palestinians, with various blood-bathed military, political, and business leaders."

"It's very clear in the title what they're against, they're not against Jews, Collings said of his artworks in an interview with Al Jazeera. They're against genocide. The genocide isn't committed by Jews. It's committed by Zionists. It's committed by Israel, which is a state that would not exist were it not for Zionism, he added, referring to the nationalist, political ideology that called for the creation of a Jewish state."

"Nothing in my drawings for genocide is remotely anti-Semitic. The allegations of anti-Semitism have focused on the portrayals of Jewish people in the drawings and allegations that various images depict blood libel, child sacrifice, and other hateful tropes. But Collings said there are no images of such tropes in the show. Of 130 drawings, 30 have recognisable public figures who are Jewish, and half of those people are heroes in my eyes, Collings said."

Read at www.aljazeera.com