Sunday, May 16, 2010

Israeli art at the Tate Modern




A number of independent Israeli artists were among many avant-garde artists presenting their work at the Tate Modern "No Soul for Sale" exhibition today. Fortunately (perhaps due to the low key nature of the event) there were none of the usual anti-Israel demonstrations that now accompany almost any such cultural activities.

But ironically, just as one of the Israeli exhibitors was telling us how there had been no trouble at all and everybody had been very nice, a stereotypical moonbat woman started haranguing us with the usual "the Zionists have stolen Palestinian land" rubbish. My partner tried to argue with her - always a mistake in my view - to which the woman's trump card response was to say "You are just Zionists" like we had no right to live let alone have an opinion that should be listened to. My response to these kind of people is to say something completely distracting (I remember Maureen Lipman writing about how she does this) so I told the woman that there was some paint dripping down the back of her jumper. Any suggestions for better ways of handling such situations are welcome.

No comments: