Candida Gertler, founder of Outset Contemporary Art Fund, has announced her resignation from the art philanthropy charity and all voluntary positions within UK arts institutions with immediate effect. ‘This decision comes not out of fear, weakness, or defeat, but as an act of principled protest against the alarming rise of antisemitism and the tacit normalization of hate within physical and online spaces meant to foster creativity and inclusion,’ Gertler said in a written statement.
A prominent and longstanding patron of the UK art scene, both through Outset and independently alongside her husband Zak Gertler, her decision to step back follows multiple campaigns protesting the couple’s alleged personal friendship with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and donations made by them to his political campaign. Gertler co-founded Outset in 2003, which has raised over £16 million in support of hundreds of artistic projects, and was given an OBE in 2015 ‘for services to Contemporary Visual Arts and Arts Philanthropy’. She has been an executive member of Tate’s International Council for more than ten years.
‘As someone who has dedicated much of my life to supporting contemporary art, championing dialogue, and creating platforms for diverse voices, I can no longer stand silent when institutions, intimidated by violent and aggressive activism that dismisses dialogue, or any kind of communication fails to uphold the foundational values of equality and respect,’ Gertler said. ‘Recent revelations of vile antisemitic sentiments in these spaces have shocked and appalled me. These are not isolated incidents but part of a broader culture that seeks to marginalize and dehumanize Jews.’
Gertler’s resignation follows the announcement on Monday that Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) would be removing the Gertlers’ names from one of its galleries and its donor board. An open letter, published on Monday and signed by more than 1000 artists and art workers, called on Tate to cut ties with donors, including Outset, who are ‘deeply complicit in the Israeli regime’, and to take a stand ‘against the artwashing of genocide and apartheid’, ahead of the Turner Prize ceremony on 3 December. Meanwhile, the Strike Outset campaign has called on artists to end existing and future partnerships with the fund.
‘I cannot, in good conscience, lend my name or efforts to a sector that does not take a resolute stand against hatred and the silencing of a plurality of views,’ Gertler said in the statement accompanying her resignation. ‘While hate-filled, often libelous content was published and negotiated in their field of responsibility none of the respective institutions had the courtesy or courage to contact me so that my first source of information were an unreliable press and social media. It was me who had to reach out and ask for more precise information. To remain silent or complicit in such a climate would undermine everything I have worked to achieve.’
‘This is not a goodbye to art but a reimagining of how it can be a force for true societal change,’ Gertler concluded. ‘To those who regard this as a victory I urge you to ask yourselves what this actually has achieved for the people you wish to help.’
