Censorship

Artist sues US city that cancelled her residency over a pro-Palestine painting

Danielle SeeWalker and the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado are suing the town of Vail, alleging its decisions violated her free speech rights

‘We are down here fighting for our lives’: Texas exhibition highlights crackdowns on reproductive healthcare and abortion access

Focusing on works by artists with ties to the American South, “Is It Real?” raises awareness and funds for reproductive rights for communities on the front lines

Film news

'The government wants to silence these voices': Peru’s new film funding law raises censorship fears for artists

The country’s film sector and wider creative industries are wary of new laws governing the type of projects that can receive state financing

After its Gaza ‘censorship’ row, London’s Barbican to host Palestinian literature festival

Voices of Resilience, which was temporarily cancelled earlier this year by Home, Manchester, is touring to the capital for the first time

Human rightsanalysis

In Belarus, freedom of expression for writers and artists remains a dream

While reportedly nearly 1,400 political prisoners, including 163 cultural figures, remain behind bars, the government stages cultural events whose prime purpose is to bolster the regime and its autocratic leader

Sasha Skochilenko: I just happened to be the winner of the ‘Hunger Games’

The Russian artist, who was freed in a prison swap, on life under President Putin and spending more than two years in prison for an art intervention opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Nan Goldin, Brian Eno and Rosalind Nashashibi among signees of open letter accusing Royal Academy of 'anti-Palestinian censorship'

The London institution removed works from a young artists’ exhibition earlier this month after they were deemed to be anti-semitic by the Board of Deputies of British Jews

Texas city faces backlash for stripping local arts centre's funding over drag performances

The city council in Lubbock, Texas voted last week to cut $30,000 in grant money to a free monthly art walk

St Louis gallery takes down artists' pro-Palestine exhibition after deeming it anti-semitic

The abrupt closure of the Craft Alliance exhibition came as a shock to the two featured artists

Cancelling Kehinde Wiley shows ‘does a disservice to the audiences’, anti-censorship group claims

The National Coalition Against Censorship is calling out museum leaders in Miami, Minneapolis and Omaha that cancelled or postponed Wiley’s exhibitions following sexual-assault allegations against him

New tool tracks incidents of artistic censorship related to Israel-Hamas war

The digital resource, created by US non-profit National Coalition Against Censorship, catalogues incidents from cancelled exhibitions and performances to removed works

George Grosz drawings, once at the heart of a protracted trial, acquired by Berlin’s Akademie der Künste

The German artist was charged with “publicly insulting the institutions of the Christian churches”

US city cancels artist's residency over pro-Palestine painting

Native American artist Danielle SeeWalker had turned down several opportunities to accept a residency in the upscale resort town of Vail

Cancelled Palestinian event at Manchester venue must be reinstated, say artists and curators

The Voices of Resilience project was scrapped following complaints from a local organisation representing a significant part of the Jewish community

‘Blasphemous’ painting of Jesus slashed, artist attacked at exhibition in Italian church

A petition calling for the removal of Andrea Saltini’s painting, which appears to depict the lifeless figure of Jesus receiving oral sex, garnered more than 30,000 signatures

Paris’s most famous art school at centre of censorship row after book removes all mention of #MeToo

Publication on École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts was reprinted without text on former director Jean-Marc Bustamante

Art marketanalysis

Is the art trade choosing to ignore a wider world in crisis?

Amid threats to freedom, career moves and censorship become hard to tell apart

Russian authorities interrogate and detain artists on eve of presidential election

The homes and studios of more than 30 artists in at least seven cities across the country have been raided

New documentary traces Iranian artist Nickzad Nodjoumi’s quest to retrieve his paintings decades after the Islamic Revolution

Directed by the artist’s daughter and her husband, “A Revolution on Canvas” is a heart-breaking family drama disguised as a political thriller

Collectors withdraw works from Barbican show after centre pulls its support for talk on Israel-Hamas war

Quilts by Loretta Pettway have been removed from a major textile survey at the London institution over accusations of “censorship and repression”

Arts Council England rows back on 'reputational risk' guidelines

The public body “will not remove or refuse funding” over political work, it has confirmed following backlash

Censorshipcomment

From shadow bans to privacy laws: how the internet has become less free—by stealth

The chilling of artistic freedom is impacting artists and those they connect with

Canaries in the coal mine: is the art world facing a rising tide of censorship?

The death of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny last month, after years of confinement in a Siberian jail, and subsequent quelling of protest, emphasised the flourishing of censorship across a globe riven by geopolitical crises, in a year when democracy is put to the test in more than 70 countries. With the threat of electoral misinformation being boosted by AI-generated content and social media algorithms, artists have been warning of new kinds of censorship. The effect is being felt in real life, online and in social media

Spainnews

Uproar after series of high-profile sackings at Spanish museums

Regional governments accused of censorship and political interference after controversial axing of five museum directors in two months

‘Shame on those that silence artists’: Shahzia Sikander speaks out after her opening in Texas is cancelled

The University of Houston seems to have caved to the threats of a local anti-abortion group

Russian artist charged with showing ‘extremist imagery’ faces four years in prison

In a recent hearing the artist, Vasily Slonov, likened his treatment to that of Aleksei Navalny, the opposition leader who died on 16 February

'It's censorship': Arts Council England under fire over new policy deterring 'overtly political statements'

Update to guidelines warns partner organisations that funding arrangements could be jeopardised by "reputational risk"

Is censorship on the rise in the West?

Plus, Frank Auerbach at the Courtauld and an Indian painting from Howard Hodgkin’s collection

Ai Weiwei criticises ‘fragile’ state of Western democracy following Sky News interview

The dissident artist argues that restrictions manifest more subtly in Europe and the US

US museum under fire for cancelling Palestinian artist’s retrospective

The Eskenazi Museum of Art of the Indiana University in Bloomington cited “safety concerns” when it abruptly cancelled Samia Halaby’s show