A retrospective exhibition at the Indiana University Bloomington (IU) of 87-year-old Palestinian artist and alumna Samia Halaby was abruptly canceled on December 20 ahead of its February 10 opening. The university informed the artist the show had been nixed in a two-sentence email citing unspecified “safety concerns.”
President Pamela Whitten has come under fire for canceling the exhibition, “Centers of Energy,” at the school’s Eskenazi Museum of Art. IU students have launched a petition to reinstate the survey—Halaby’s first in the United States—and in which the authors allege the show had been in the works for over three years. Many at IU and the greater arts community were left baffled why the exhibition, scheduled to host approximately 35 abstract paintings and drawings from across Halaby’s career, posed a threat. The university leadership offered no evidence to support the claim of any risk around the exhibition.
