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# Protest Targets Whitney Museum Board Ties After Canceled Performance
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/protest-targets-whitney-museum-board-ties-after-canceled-performance/
- Published: 2025-05-27T21:35:31.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:07:25.000Z
- Description: Demonstrators pointed to museum trustees’ links to Zionist entities and weapons used by Israel against Palestinians.
- Author: Rhea Nayyar
- Tags: News, New York, Protest, Whitney Museum of American Art, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-large, #Import 2025-11-24 09:41 (2025)

A group of protesters staged a demonstration in the lobby of the Whitney Museum of American Art last Friday evening, May 23, targeting board members “tied to genocide, militarism, and apartheid” and accusing the museum of censorship after it canceled a performance about Palestinian mourning at the Independent Study Program (ISP) earlier this month. The protest lasted about one hour, with approximately 50 activists in participation, including several alumni of the ISP, a program funded by the Whitney.

The action came two weeks after the [museum canceled the May 14 staging](https://hyperallergic.com/whitney-museum-cancels-performance-about-palestinian-mourning/) of “No Aesthetic Outside My Freedom: Mourning, Militancy, and Performance,” a performance piece by artists Noel Maghathe, Fadl Fakhouri, and Fargo Tbakhi that had been organized by the ISP's current curatorial cohort. *Hyperallergic* reported that Museum Director Scott Rothkopf took issue with Tbakhi's introduction to the performance from an earlier staging last year, in which Tbakhi asks audience members who supported Israel to leave.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/05/img_5574.jpg)

An example of the custom-printed museum pamphlets distributed to visitors

Catalyzed by the museum's decision, the protesters took over the lobby during the weekly Free Fridays program, deploying painted banners and signs accusing the museum of “artwashing genocide,” “sponsoring war crimes,” and “policing artists.” The group handed out 600 mock museum pamphlets identifying specific board members and their ties to Zionist, militarized, and surveillance-oriented entities.

The tri-folds named Nancy Carrington Crown, whose family members are major shareholders of General Dynamics, the arms and information systems company that has [supplied the Israeli military with bombs and ammunition](https://investigate.afsc.org/company/general-dynamics?ref=hyperallergic.com); Estée Lauder heir Leonard Lauder, whose brother Ronald is the [president of the World Jewish Congress](https://hyperallergic.com/966149/protesters-take-to-moma-during-world-jewish-congress-gala/) and a chairman emeritus of the Jewish National Fund; and billionaire Laurie Tisch, whose cousin Jessica Tisch became the New York City Police Commissioner last November.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/05/img_5473.jpg)

A selection of hand-painted banners targeting the museum were brought in during the Free Friday Nights programming.

The protesters remained in the lobby from 8pm to 9pm before exiting without force. They chanted outside for approximately 20 minutes before dissipating. No arrests were made.

This isn't the first time the Whitney's board has been targeted in pro-Palestine protests. A little over a year ago, activists staged a sound- and projection-based [intervention during the Whitney Biennial](https://hyperallergic.com/911012/in-surprise-action-activists-decry-whitney-museums-ties-to-israeli-military/) to call out Carrington Crown and museum sponsor Hyundai Motors for their ties to the Israeli military. In [November 2023](https://hyperallergic.com/858510/whitney-museum-entrance-doused-with-fake-blood/), activists doused the museum's stairs with fake blood during a march for Gaza in Manhattan.

The museum is no stranger to criticism and actions against its board members, either. Ex-Vice Chairman [Warren Kanders was ousted from the Whitney](https://hyperallergic.com/511052/warren-kanders-resigns/) in 2019 after [persistent protests](https://hyperallergic.com/491418/decolonize-this-place-nine-weeks-launch/) and [artist withdrawals](https://hyperallergic.com/510167/artists-withdraw-work-from-2019-whitney-biennial/) when it was revealed that his company, Safariland, produced and sold [tear gas that was used at the US-Mexico border](https://hyperallergic.com/472964/a-whitney-museum-vice-chairman-owns-a-manufacturer-supplying-tear-gas-at-the-border/) as well as [Puerto Rico](https://hyperallergic.com/510433/safariland-tear-gas-allegedly-puerto-rico/).

The Whitney did not immediately respond to *Hyperallergic*'s request for comment.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/05/img_5541.jpg)

From the museum's second floor balcony, visitors and security watch as the protest unfolded.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/05/img_5483.jpg)

One protester wears a shirt with the Holocaust-era pink triangle reimagined as a watermelon, invoking ACT UP's "Silence = Death" slogan applied to the ongoing decimation of Gaza.