An installation in the window of the nonprofit bookstore and art space Printed Matter in New York City has drawn both strong condemnation and vocal support. Created by independent publisher Shadow Comms (Shiva Addanki) and on view from June 13 through July 24, the work links resistance movements in Gaza to others around the world, incorporating photographs of border crossings, refugees, tanks, and drones. A central image, originally taken by Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa for Reuters, depicts bulldozers breaking down the fence separating Gaza and Israel on October 7.
In a statement, Shadow Comms explained that the work “portrays the worldwide continuum of colonial extraction and imperialist warfare that has come into sharper relief from the broadcast of the ongoing siege on Gaza in response to Toufan Al-Aqsa,” using the name by which Hamas refers to the October 7 attack. It draws “connections between the border walls gouging through the Americas and the border walls gouging through Palestine” in addition to conflicts in the Congo, Sudan, Haiti, Kashmir, and Lebanon, and the banner portrays refugees from several of these regions.
On its website, Printed Matter notes that its Chelsea location’s windows were first used as a platform for public art by founding member Lucy Lippard in 1976 and have since become “a platform for politically provocative art, aiming to raise consciousness around issues such as gentrification, misogyny, nuclear proliferation, and poverty.”
“Today the PM Window Series has a broader mandate, regularly evoking themes of political and social justice as well as providing a space for emerging artists to create installations in association with their publications,” the online text explains.
Reactions to the new display were mixed. On Instagram, some commenters posted Palestinian flag and watermelon emojis but questioned why Printed Matter has not yet signed onto the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). Others felt angered by the banner’s inclusion of the October 7 photograph.
Shortly after the window display went up, the Los Angeles-based, Israeli-American curator and writer Rotem Rozental penned an open letter to Printed Matter requesting the artwork’s immediate removal. “The choice here is to feature this image as a moment of liberation, when it is, in fact, the beginning of the end,” wrote Rozental, who published a book exploring the photographic archives of the Zionist movement last year. “It is a documentation of the moments before the worst attack to have ever been launched on Israel. This image captures the trigger for the war and the devastation that took over the Middle East.”
Within 72 hours, over 2,500 people had signed the letter, according to Rozental, and it currently has over 3,100 signatures.
“It is unfortunate that Printed Matter did not deem it appropriate to respond to the criticism and engage with the many members of their community, including past collaborators, who feel excluded and pushed out. Their silence speaks volumes,” Rozental told Hyperallergic.
Though Printed Matter did not respond directly to the petition, the organization added a short update on its website on July 15 that read in part, “Printed Matter does not censor the artists who take part in our programming, although we understand that some members of our audiences may disagree with or find some of the material they encounter challenging. We respect the perspectives of our diverse audience as well as the rights of artists to share their work and ideas.”
Printed Matter declined Hyperallergic’s request for comment, and Shadow Comms did not respond to inquiries.
Faisal Saleh, founder of the Palestine Museum in Woodbridge, Connecticut, has a different perspective on the work, opining that the window display represents a legitimate response to Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
“For 16 years, Israel had imposed a siege on Gaza. A siege like that is military aggression,” he told Hyperallergic. “I’m not defending killing civilians, but what Hamas did by breaking through the fence and attacking Israeli forces is justified by international law. You have the right to defend yourself against a siege.”
Saleh shared an image of a painting by Gaza-based Palestinian artist Mohammed Alhaj that is currently on view at the museum. Painted in 2021, two years before the events of October 7, “Gaza Displacement” depicts multicolored silhouettes streaming through a hole ripped in a razor-wire-topped chain-link fence.
“He was imagining someday in the future when the demographic pressure on people and the constraints on life there would generate an explosion,” Saleh explained in a call with Hyperallergic from Arabic, translating as he spoke with Alhaj on another line. “When he woke up on October 7, he realized that what he thought about was actually happening. Gaza was exploding out.”
Part of Alhaj’s inspiration came from the “Great March of Return,” protests along the Gaza border in 2018–19 during which Israeli forces killed 214 Palestinians. “He thought that someday those people are going to go in with their own hands and cut through [the fence], to try to reach the places where they used to belong, where they used to live,” Saleh said.
But for Rozental, the image as it was incorporated by Shadow Comms cannot be separated from the massacres that followed. “When this image is shown in a large size at a storefront of a gallery of a public-supported nonprofit, incorporated into a visual narrative that connects struggles for liberation with the violent, murderous attack on Israel, the organization behind this needs to pause and consider its message,” she told Hyperallergic.
For Jacqueline Béjani, a Palestinian artist based in Luxembourg, the difficulty of untangling these references is a crucial element of the artwork.
“There are two ways to read this image: One is to roll it forward to the horrors of October 7, another is to unroll it backward to understand why and where it comes from and expose the horrors of the past,” Béjani told Hyperallergic.
“Uncovering the context does not minimize the massacres but instead is essential to achieve peace,” she continued. “The power of this work is to overlap conflicting feelings. It forces us to see what disturbs the comfortable lives of some. It shows concerns that must not be concealed. It’s precisely the aim of art.”
