ARTFORUM editor fired over pro-Palestinian open letter

Artforum editor-in-chief David Velasco was fired on Friday after six years in the role. On the same day, the magazine's editors released a statement about an open letter in support of Palestine that had been published by “Artforum” on October 19. The statement claimed that the letter had been shared “without our, or the necessary senior members of the editorial team’s, prior knowledge” and that its presentation was “widely misinterpreted as a statement from the magazine.”

The letter received considerable backlash for failing to mention or condemn the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7. The authors called for “an end to the killing and harm to all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and an end to the complicity of our governing bodies in serious human rights violations and war crimes.” .

Several signatories withdrew their names, including artists Peter Doig, Tomás Saraceno, Joan Jonas and Katharina Grosse. The letter about “Artforum” stated that it “reflects the views of the undersigned parties and was not written, directed or initiated by Artforum or its team”. Velasco is one of the signatories.

“I have no regrets,” Velasco told the New York Times. “I am disappointed that a magazine that has always defended freedom of expression and artists' voices has given in to external pressure.”

Several letters and statements were published in response to the October 19 letter. Among them is a letter, also published by “Artforum”, from dealers Dominique Lévy, Brett Gorvy and Amalia Dayan. Of their anguish, they wrote that the letter “fails to recognize the ongoing mass hostage emergency, the historical context and the atrocities committed in Israel on October 7, 2023 – the bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust.”

The authors of the original open letter later revised its text. On October 23, they clarified that their rejection of “violence against all civilians, regardless of their identity,” included a “shared disgust at the horrific massacres of 1,400 people in Israel carried out by Hamas on October 7,” adding: “We regret all civilian victims. We hope for the rapid release of all hostages and continue to call for an immediate ceasefire.”

In their statement, the Artforum editors said: “If the appropriate members of the editorial team had been consulted, the letter would have been presented as news with the relevant context. The open letter was widely misinterpreted as a statement by the magazine about highly sensitive and complex geopolitical circumstances.”

“Our publication has a proud history of defending rights,” they added. “The fact that the letter was misinterpreted as a reflection of the magazine's position has understandably led to significant consternation among our readers and the community, which we deeply regret. It also placed our team members in the untenable position of being represented by a statement that was not uniformly theirs.”

The letter's authors, who have so far remained anonymous, said the letter was closed when it reached 8,000 signatories. Penske Media, owner of Artforum, did not respond to multiple requests to confirm the number of signatories. Neither Penske Media nor Velasco had confirmed Velasco's termination by press time.

Velasco has been editor-in-chief of Artforum since 2017, having joined the publication in 2005 as an editorial assistant.

Source: Artnet News