News Register for our weekly news digest here.

MoMA Spotlights Artists from Countries Affected by Trump’s Visa Ban

The Museum of Modern Art in New York has hung part of its permanent collection to showcase works by artists from Muslim nations in an act of solidarity with the citizens of the seven countries who have been blocked from entering the United States as a result of President Trump’s recent executive order, Jason Farago of the New York Times reports.

On Thursday night, MoMA replaced works by Picasso, Matisse, and Picabia with works by the Sudanese painter Ibrahim el-Salahi, the Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid, and the Los Angeles–based Iranian video artist Tala Madani. Next to each work is a label that reads: “This work is by an artist from a nation whose citizens are being denied entry into the United States, according to a presidential executive order issued on Jan. 27, 2017. This is one of several such artworks from the museum’s collection installed throughout the fifth-floor galleries to affirm the ideals of welcome and freedom as vital to this museum as they are to the United States.”

Among the other artists whose works have been installed are Siah Armajani, Marcos Grigorian, Charles Hossein Zenderoudi, Shirana Shahbazi, and Parviz Tanavoli. The museum is planning to make more changes in the upcoming weeks.

In addition, four screenings by film directors subject to the travel ban—Al-Yazerli (1974) by Kais al-Zubaidi, who was born in Iraq, and Stars in Broad Daylight (1988) by Oussama Mohammad from Syria—are scheduled for later this month.

LATEST NEWS