New York’s Museum of Modern Art is taking a stand against President Donald Trump’s travel ban by replacing pieces by Picasso and Matisse in favour of artists who originate from seven Muslim-majority countries affected by the executive order.
The day before the travel ban was blocked, curators at MoMA began replacing works by Picasso, Matisse and Picabia in the fifth-floor gallery with pieces by Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid, Sudanese painter Ibrahim el-Salahi and Iranian video artist Tala Madani, the New York Times reports.
Each new piece has been taken from the museum’s permanent collection. Next to each work appears a piece of wall text, stating: “This work is by an artist from a nation whose citizens are being denied entry to the United States, according to a presidential executive order issued on Jan 27, 2017. This is one of several such artworks from the Museum’s collection installed throughout the fifth floor galleries to affirm the ideals of welcome and freedom as vital to this Museum as they are to the United States.”
The fifth floor galleries traditionally document Western modernism until the 1940s, but now they will include works by several Iranian artists alongside Hadid and el-Salahi, such as sculptor Parviz Tanavoli and photographer Shirana Shahbazi, the newspaper reports.
