Brooklyn Arts Studio Apologizes for Removing Work of Palestinian-American Staffer

UrbanGlass, an arts space and glass-making studio in Brooklyn, has issued a public apology for excluding the work of a Palestinian-American employee from a staff exhibition in March.

Sixteen members of the space’s staff subsequently took their pieces out of the exhibition in solidarity with Phil Garip, the artist whose work was taken away. UrbanGlass ultimately canceled the exhibition in which Garip’s work was to appear.

Those staff members restaged the canceled show at People’s Forum, a community center for advocacy organizing in Manhattan’s Garment District a week later, in early March. Members of Urban Glass’s executive board committee notified Garip of the decision to exclude the work in late February.

According to a statement published on UrbanGlass’s Instagram this week, the piece was removed from the exhibition because it contained the phrase “from the river to the sea,” a pro-Palestine slogan that some Jewish groups called antisemitic hate speech. UrbanGlass’s executive committee asked Garip, who began working as a glass instructor there in 2020, to remove the text of the protest slogan from the piece, according to Hyperallergic.

UrbanGlass’s statement said the organization excluded the work from the March show to mitigate potential conflicts, both “internally and externally.” The move had an unintended effect of “marginalizing” the voice of a Palestinian artist, UrbanGlass said.

“We failed in this regard an seek to repair the damage that was caused,” the statement said.