{"id":290920,"date":"2025-10-10T03:25:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T03:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/290920\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T03:25:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T03:25:13","slug":"california-school-shutters-exhibition-after-altering-political-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/290920\/","title":{"rendered":"California School Shutters Exhibition After Altering “Political” Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles \u2014 A private Christian university in Malibu has closed an exhibition six months ahead of schedule, following requests from at least a dozen artists to withdraw from the show after the school removed or altered art it considered \u201cpolitical.\u201d The news comes amid a federal attack on nonprofit organizations<\/a> whose actions or words have run afoul of the Trump administration\u2019s ideologies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hold My Hand in Yours<\/a> at Pepperdine University\u2019s Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art features a range of artwork that centers hands as symbols of labor, identity, care, and connection. Curated by Weisman Museum Director Andrea Gyorody, the exhibition opened on September 6 and was slated to run until March 29. Last Wednesday, October 1, Elana Mann, one of the artists in the show, was informed by Gyorody that her video \u201cCall to Arms 2015-2025<\/a>\u201d (2025) had been turned off at the university\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

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\t\tHold My Hand in Yours installation view with work by Elana Mann in center (photo by Paul Salveson, courtesy Weisman Museum)<\/p>\n

Mann\u2019s video documents performances and activations involving a series of sculptural instruments the artist made from the cast of an arm, examples of which were also included in the show. These objects have a cupped hand with an opening on one end, like a megaphone, and a trumpet-like bell at the other end. Chronicling \u201cten years of collaboration, unruly sounds and collective listening,\u201d as a title card states, most of the performances took place at art institutions. One performance shown in the video, however, was part of the 2017 May Day March in Los Angeles<\/a>, during which participants used Mann\u2019s horns to chant phrases like \u201cNo Justice, No Peace,\u201d \u201cSay it Loud, Say it Clear, Immigrants are Welcome Here,\u201d and \u201cNo aceptaremos una Am\u00e9rica racista\u201d (\u201cWe won\u2019t accept a racist America\u201d). Throughout the video, interstitial titles provide historical context, referencing the aftermath of the 2016 election, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the \u201csummer of racial reckonings.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Left: Detail of AMBOS, \u201cCon Nuestros Manos Construimos Deidades (With Our Hands We Build Deities)\u201d (2023) (photo by Henry Adams, courtesy Pepperdine Graphic); Right: Installation view of AMBOS\u2019s work (photo by Paul Salveson, courtesy Weisman Museum)<\/p>\n

School administrators also took issue with an embroidery that read \u201cSave the Children\u201d and \u201cAbolish ICE,\u201d part of \u201cCon Nuestros Manos Construimos Deidades (With Our Hands We Build Deities)\u201d (2023), a large collaborative sculpture by the group Art Made Between Opposite Sides (AMBOS). According to Natalie Godinez, executive director of AMBOS, officials turned the fabric swatch so that the text was no longer visible and removed a sign informing visitors they could touch the artwork.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The work was the result of a series of workshops focused on issues of cross-border migration held by AMBOS in Tijuana, San Diego, and Los Angeles. Over 240 participants made casts of their hands and sewed patches with messages of protection resembling the devotional Christian garments known as scapulars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was made in community across borders, with the idea that you can touch the hand of the person on the other side of the border,\u201d Godinez told Hyperallergic. \u201cBy censoring a piece of the artwork and not allowing people to interact with it, it waters down the meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tDetail of AMBOS, \u201cCon Nuestros Manos Construimos Deidades (With Our Hands We Build Deities)\u201d (2023) (detail) (photo by Paul Salveson, courtesy Weisman Museum)<\/p>\n

In response to the school\u2019s actions, Mann and AMBOS requested that their works be withdrawn from the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both artists told Hyperallergic that Pepperdine administration did not explain their decision. In response to Hyperallergic\u2019s inquiry, a representative for the school cited the works\u2019 political content. \u201cBecause Pepperdine\u2019s established practice with the Weisman Museum has been to avoid overtly political content consistent with the University\u2019s nonprofit status, it removed these two pieces from display,\u201d Michael Friel, Pepperdine\u2019s senior director of Communications and Public Relations, told Hyperallergic.<\/p>\n

President Trump and Republicans have ramped up threats to the nonprofit sector in recent weeks. On September 25, Trump signed the memorandum \u201cCountering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,\u201d which instructs federal agencies to prosecute nonprofit organizations \u201cengaged in acts of political violence.\u201d Advocacy groups have warned<\/a> that the memo\u2019s vague language gives the government power to silence dissent and suppress diverging views.<\/p>\n

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\t\tWorks by Roksana Pirouzmand and Carmen Argote, who asked to withdraw from the show<\/p>\n

In the past week, several artists in the show requested that their work also be removed or covered in solidarity with Mann and AMBOS, and as a gesture of protest against the school\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cElana [Mann]\u2019s work strikes me as overtly egalitarian \u2014 it is about the right to free speech, the right to protest, and the right not to be silenced,\u201d Cara Levine, an artist included in Hold My Hand in Yours, told Hyperallergic. \u201cI don\u2019t see it as arguing for or against any particular political position \u2026 It argues for the essential value of free political speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her letter to Gyorody requesting that her work be withdrawn, artist Carmen Argote wrote that \u201cthe censorship of Elana Mann\u2019s work and the collective work of AMBOS being censored is a loss for the students and for the art community, and it signals that the gallery, under current conditions, can no longer function as a place for art.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRemoving, censoring, or modifying artwork under opaque circumstances is alarming, and does not bode well for the state of creative expression, especially in a university context that is supposed to foster teaching and learning,\u201d said artist Stephanie Syjuco, who requested that her video \u201cBlock Out the Sun\u201d (2021) be withdrawn from the show. \u201cOn its website, Pepperdine states that it is committed to an inclusive environment, and I sincerely hope that this extends to the content of its museum exhibitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

After several artists asked to remove their works, the university decided to close the exhibition altogether on Wednesday, October 8, Friel told Hyperallergic.<\/p>\n

Although Mann said she has dealt with some pushback regarding her work in the past, she had never had a piece removed from display after a show had opened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was caught totally by surprise,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even so, Mann, like many artists in the show, noted similarities between this situation and larger attacks on art and culture taking place nationwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work began during a very specific cycle of politics that is now reaching its apex,\u201d Mann said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles \u2014 A private Christian university in Malibu has closed an exhibition six months ahead of schedule,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":290921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,411,1033,171,224,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-290920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-censorship","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115347739535608730","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}