11 May 16-22, 2024 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | Culture | Cafe | MusiC | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | Room Without a Vu Oolite Arts pullled a Palestinian-themed artwork from a Walgreens window display in Miami Beach. BY DOUGLAS MARKOWITZ M ere weeks after a not-dissimi- lar instance of censorship at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, a different local arts organization has pulled down an artwork supportive of Palestine. Oolite Arts, a Miami Beach-based non- profit arts center, removed from view an art- work featuring a pro-Palestinian slogan — a move that came to light via an open letter cir- culated online by a group of South Florida artists, creatives, and workers. The letter calls for the resignation of Oo- lite Arts board chair Marie Elena Angulo over the alleged censorship The work, created by Vu Hoàng Khánh Nguyên and titled How we live like water, was installed on March 27 in a display window Oolite maintains at the Walgreens at 6700 Collins Ave. in Miami Beach. According to a statement the artist shared alongside the letter, the work was removed on Friday, May 3. “The Oolite Arts Board of Directors made the decision to remove my artwork during a phone call on May 3 without my consent, and they notified me only after they initiated the removal process,” Vu, who identifies as queer and uses they/he pronouns, writes. “[T]he board’s decision was in response to a letter di- rected to the board from ‘a group of Jewish lawyers’ claiming that my work contains a political message that they find offensive.” New Times reached Vu through a repre- sentative but they declined to comment. An anonymous source shared emails with New Times in which Angulo orders the art- work taken down. In a May 3 email sent to Oolite staff, An- gulo wrote that Jeffrey Gilbert, a lawyer at the firm Greenspoon Marder LLP, had con- tacted her privately, “speaking on behalf of a group of Jewish South Beach residents.” The group took issue with Vu’s usage of the phrase “From the river to the sea,” the central feature in their artwork, which replaces the words “river” and “sea” with photographic images of each respective body of water. “That statement is viewed by some as hate speech and it is contrary to our DEI state- ment,” Angulo wrote. “It should come down.” In a separate email to staffers, she wrote, “To be clear, this is an order.” One Person’s Call In a subsequent email she sent the Oolite board this week, Angulo confirmed that she had acted unilaterally, explaining that “our agreement with Walgreens limits what we can display on their windows/private property.” New Times left voicemails requesting comment on two separate phone numbers associated with Angulo but had not heard back at the time of publication. Aside from her activities with Oolite and as an art collector, Angulo is an attorney for the international corporate law firm White & Case. The firm is closely tied to the State of Israel and Israeli companies and announced in March that it had advised the Israeli gov- ernment on an international bond offering. Another email reveals that Oolite’s resi- dent show, “Everything is a Spiral,” was post- poned because the artwork was taken down. The exhibition was originally planned to open Wednesday, May 8, before curator De- jha Carrington backed out along with several artists whose work was to be included in the show. In a statement provided to New Times, Carrington said, “We have together decided to pause and make space for a more imminent internal dialogue between the artists and stakeholders at Oolite Arts that is unrelated to this exhibit.” Carrington said the staff and resident art- ists convened ahead of the opening to discuss the situation and ultimately decided to post- pone the show owing to the incident involv- ing Vu. “We decided together that we wanted to make place for this conversation to take priority, between the stakeholders at Oolite and artists in residency,” she added. “And by stakeholders I mean the board.” Some of the artists in the show, including Oolite residents Alejandra Moros, Carrington Ware, Chire “VantaBlack” Regans, Lee Piv- nik, and Diana Larrea, also signed the open letter. In addition to demanding Angulo’s res- ignation as board chair, the artists call for Oo- lite to “publicly disclose its financial investments which on average have returned approximately $2.3 million each of the last four years.” Other demands include increased trans- parency and consistency, and a review of ex- isting policies, especially those that pertain to “removal or potential censorship of artwork.” The artists have called for a town hall be- tween the board and staff, current resident artists, and alumni to be held by May 31. (The group created a website, Oolite Arts Account- ability, where it has uploaded the open letter along with Vu’s statement.) “We are disturbed by Oolite Arts’ censor- ship of Vu’s work, their total lack of transpar- ency around this decision, and the dangerous precedent it sets for art organizations like Oo- lite Arts, institutions claiming to be led by the needs of artists,” the letter reads. “Without transparency or communication from Oolite Arts’ Board of Directors, we are left to con- clude that they considered a request from a third party reason enough to censor an artist — and that the institution’s board as a whole considers itself, its financial assets, and any third party it supports far more important than the integrity and protection of the artist and broader artistic community they claim to support and from whose cultural production they benefit.” The letter references Vu’s experience as a Vietnam War refugee, comparing that con- flict to the current one in Gaza. “Vu is a child of refugees who ▼ Culture Vu Hoàng Khánh Nguyên’s How we live like water was allegedly ordered to be removed from the window of a Walgreens in Miami Beach by Oolite Arts’ chair Marie Elena Angulo. Courtesy of the artist >> p12
