Triple Canopy published the lecture, On a Painting by Hamishi Farah by Tobi Haslett. This lecture was given at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) on February 1, 2025, as part of the Transmediale festival. Hamishi Farah was commissioned to make a painting that was to be shown publicly during the festival. Transmedia festival declined to hung the painting.
A couple of excerpts from the text:
It should be said at the outset that those in charge of Transmediale were not told they were getting a painting of Chialo; they thought they’d be exhibiting something else. So they’re well within their rights to refuse to install it, and the mere fact that I’m still allowed to speak with the piece propped up next to me is proof of both their generosity and tact.
But I suspect that the real reason this painting cannot be exhibited properly is the same reason Farah thought to paint it in the first place, and the reason its true subject had to be concealed from the curators of this festival: that Joe Chialo represents the cutting edge of culture-industry repression in this country, which is not exactly known these days for its openness, permissiveness, good faith, or good taste.
To be more specific: Over a year ago Chialo, in his official capacity as minister, proposed a so-called antidiscrimination clause to be included in all contracts—yes, all contracts—for recipients of public arts funding. Included in that clause was an intriguing and topical detail: Anyone receiving public funds would have to commit to abiding by the notorious International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which effectively conflates criticism of Israel with hate speech.
[…]
The subject that gazes out from Farah’s canvas was the face of the most ambitious, even audacious attempt to censor and punish support, within the arts, for Palestinian freedom. I’m sure I don’t need to point out that all of this was taking place against the backdrop of the genocidal assault on Gaza. Indeed, this attempt to inscribe fealty to Israel into the day-to-day operation of the much-celebrated, publicly-subsidized Berlin art world amounted to an attempt to fully—dare I say finally—silence any and all cultural opposition to the starvation, bombardment, and invasion that marked only the latest blood-soaked episode in the colonization of Palestine. The face in this painting was, for a moment, the face of the pro-Israel vanguard within the German state. That’s saying something. And one might infer, based on Farah’s previous work, that it matters more than a little that this smiling, public face is a black face. Its presence in the German state apparatus might be cited as proof of the transcendence, at last, of racism—even as Arabs and antigenocide demonstrators get their skulls smashed in the street.
It’s all a bit bizarre. You might even call it fucking ridiculous. Indeed, ridicule appears to be a big part of what’s at stake in this particular painting. Or, if not quite ridicule, then irony, anguished paradox, an appreciation (however rueful) of the exquisiteness that attends this very contemporary contradiction.
The whole thing is excellent!
