We, artists, authors, researchers, and cultural workers, we who have contributed for nearly fifty years to the events and collections of the Centre Pompidou, we who frequent it, we who visit it, are horrified and distressed by the partnership that this public institution has formed with the Hanwha Foundation for Culture, which has resulted in the opening of a branch, the Centre Pompidou Hanwha, in Seoul on June 4.
This partnership links the loan and exhibition of the National Museum of Modern Art’s collection to the Hanwha Foundation for Culture, an entity that launders profits generated by the South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group. The group has been involved in and profiting from the sale of weapons and military equipment for decades and, in 2021, signed a cooperation agreement with Elbit Systems, an Israeli military company with a notorious reputation: It is this equipment that is being used today by the Israeli military in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon to annihilate entire peoples, along with their culture, history, and narratives. For genocide and wars of conquest are accompanied by cultural genocide.
The assassination of artists, poets, journalists, and intellectuals, and the destruction of all spaces for creation, archiving, exhibition, and preservation in Gaza and southern Lebanon demand a strong response and commitment from the Centre Pompidou. Yet, this public cultural institution is instead partnering with a corporate foundation that profits from the systematic destruction of cultural institutions in Palestine and Lebanon. He is making himself an accomplice to this. We refuse to allow our works and contributions to be exploited in this attempt at “artwashing.”
That is why we call on the Centre Pompidou to return to the Hanwha Foundation for Culture the proceeds of its indirect negotiations with the Hanwha Group conglomerate, sever all ties with this foundation, and commit to establishing: 1) a structural aid for cultural institutions destroyed and damaged by wars and genocide; 2) a support fund for Palestinian and Lebanese artists in exile; 3) a reserve fund for a future contemporary art center in Gaza—to be managed by and used for the benefit of Palestinian cultural workers.
Rather than engaging in opaque soft power initiatives that contribute to the trivialization of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the Palestinian genocide, the Centre Pompidou must work in full transparency with us—artists, authors, and researchers—to find the financial and logistical means to launch a vast undertaking aimed at preserving the traces and redeploying into the future what remains of the artistic and cultural life of devastated nations. We want to involve the Center’s friends and supporters in this effort, in order to raise the funds needed to ensure these initiatives are carried out with the dignity and urgency they deserve.