Artworks and artists touching upon the subject of Israel and Palestine have long been subjects of controversy and/or censorship, but following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Israel’s disproportionate retaliation in Gaza, and the massive student 2024 protests in the United States, censorship incidents have risen dramatically, threatening the creative freedom of artists across the United States and abroad. This map tracks instances of censorship specifically affecting audience access to arts in the United States: whether visual, performance-based, or literary.
We have intentionally limited our data collection to cases in which institutions expressly canceled, withdrew, abandoned, or restricted a program or work after plans to present it had been communicated, and where the reason for the withdrawal was related to the perceived political content of the work, the personal politics of the artist, the national or cultural associations tied up in the content of the work or the general tense political atmosphere related to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
We do not include cases in which artists substantially altered their own work after it had been curated, or cases where curatorial frameworks precluded an artwork from being selected in the first place. Additionally, this map does not record employee firings, instances in which galleries have terminated their representation of artists, expulsions of student groups from college campuses, or instances in which protests have temporarily interfered with the presentation of work. It also does not record examples in which artists have elected to withdraw their work from public presentation in an act of protest, or instances in which artists have self-censored their work or their views for fear of backlash. We acknowledge that the data represented likely reflect a fraction of arts censorship incidents, and that the current political climate’s chilling effects on speech reverberate in myriad ways beyond the incidents noted.
The collection of data for this map is an ongoing project. If you believe we have missed a relevant incident, if you have a new incident to report for consideration, please let us know by filling out a Censorship Report.
For curators, museum directors, and cultural institutions struggling with whether and how to present a controversial work, we encourage you to contact us using the Censorship Report form as well. We offer behind-the-scenes advisement and can provide both strategies and resources, such as the Museum Best Practices for Managing Controversy, which can aid in determining how to display contested artworks and how to prepare for and prevent backlash.