Two Artists Withdraw Their Work From a Show at the Shed in Protest of Billionaire Board Member and Trump Funder Stephen Ross

Two artists who collaborated on a project on view at the
newly opened art and
performance space the Shed have withdrawn their work in protest
of a board member’s support of President Donald Trump.

The institution complied with A.L. Steiner and Zackary
Drucker‘s request to pull their art on August 10, the day after
real estate developer and Shed board member Stephen Ross held a
high-profile fundraiser in the Hamptons to support Trump’s 2020
campaign. “Instead of having a fundraiser for whatever he
could have a fundraiser for, he had one for Trump,” Steiner told
the Observer, which first
reported the news.

News of Ross’s fundraiser sent ripples through many of the
businesses in which he invests, including fitness companies
SoulCycle and Equinox, which have aligned themselves with
progressive values and whose customers live largely in liberal
metropolises. It also led fashion designers Rag & Bone and Prabal
Gurung to pull their planned
runway shows from Hudson Yards and the Shed, where they were set to
present their spring 2020 collections this fall.

By comparison, Steiner and Drucker’s act of defiance received
considerably less attention. They withdrew their
installation Before/After (2007/2019) from the
current exhibition “Open Call 2” the day after the
fundraiser, but did not contact the press or make a public
statement. The Observer only learned of
the withdrawal by reading the explanatory wall text in the
galleries. (“It’s difficult to manifest change by solely getting
attention in the short-term,” Steiner said when asked about her
decision to keep the protest quiet.)

Steiner and Drucker did not immediately respond to artnet News’s
request for comment. Representatives for the Shed did not respond
by publication time, but Steiner told
the Observer that the staff was “supportive” of
their decision.

Even before news of the Trump fundraiser broke, “it felt
extremely difficult to participate in the exhibition,” Steiner
said, citing the $6 billion in tax breaks Hudson Yards had received
from the government. (Ross is the chairman of the Related
Companies, the developer of Hudson Yards, where the Shed is
located.)

She noted that she had not shown new work since the 2016
presidential election, though she displayed older or collaborative
work twice this year: once at the Shed and once at the Whitney
Biennial, which has been dogged by similar controversy over the
financial ties of its board members. “It goes to show myself that
it’s too difficult for me to participate right now,” Steiner told
the Observer.

The artists’ withdrawal comes just a few weeks after eight
others demanded their own works be
removed from the Whitney Biennial because of the museum’s
relationship to then-vice chair Warren Kanders, CEO of weapons
manufacturer Safariland. After months of sustained protest, Kanders
resigned from the Whitney’s
board in late July, and the artists agreed to keep their works
on view. A similar tactic was adopted by 11 artists participating
in the Aichi Triennale, who withdrew or modified their
works to protest the censorship of other participating artists’
work.

The latest withdrawal at the Shed highlights the increasing
tension surrounding institutions accepting support from
trustees whose sources of income are controversial. “We are
actively having our rights clawed back, and the institutions we are
connected to have a responsibility to advocate for us as cultural
producers,” Drucker told the Observer. “If
they’re not, then we withdraw our presentation because they’re
benefiting from our creative labor.”

Before/After features several photographs collaged onto
a sheet of drywall that present the artists’ nude or semi-nude
bodies. It was featured in a section of the show titled “She
Models for Her,” which is inspired by the legacy of 19th-century
painter Suzanne Valadon. The show, “Open Call 2,” is the second
installment of the Shed’s large-scale commissioning program
dedicated to presenting new work by emerging artists and
collectives.

In a recent statement, Ross said he and the president “agree on
some issues, we strongly disagree on many others and I have never
been bashful about expressing my opinions…. I have been, and will
continue to be, an outspoken champion of racial equality,
inclusion, diversity, public education, and environmental
sustainability.” In another statement, he noted: “In terms of
Trump, there’s good and bad obviously, with anything.”

Steiner bristled at this line in particular, telling the
Observer: “How do we live in a world that equivocates the
torture, abuse, and murder of people of color as a policy position
and decides what part of it is good?”

The post Two Artists Withdraw Their Work From a Show at the
Shed in Protest of Billionaire Board Member and Trump Funder
Stephen Ross appeared first on artnet News.