Nicole Eisenman Opens Up About Supporting Gaza: ‘Artists Are Hesitant to Grapple With the Destruction’

Earlier this year, the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired The Auction (2024–25), a painting by artist Nicole Eisenman. Like much of Eisenman’s oeuvre, it’s a fanciful work of figuration, featuring a feverish bidding war overseen by a fruit-headed, black-robed judge. While Eisenman’s works are funny at first glance, a nuanced narrative, interweaving the personal and political, can usually be teased out of them. That was not the case with The Auction, which didn’t easily open itself to interpretation—until now.

In an interview with the Financial Times tied to two new shows at London’s Royal Academy and Sadie Coles HQ, Eisenman noted that the painting was partly inspired by behind-the-scenes fallout from her support for Palestine following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel in 2023. Eisenman, who is Jewish, was among thousands of high-profile artists who signed an open letter published in Artforum expressing support for “Palestinian liberation” without explicitly acknowledging the Israelis killed or kidnapped during the attack. According to Artforum, its editors had not commissioned or drafted the letter, which also appeared in e-flux.

The letter had a fracturing effect on the art world, regardless: powerful art dealers publicly denounced the signatories, while reports surfaced that some collectors were contacting artists whose works they owned to convey their displeasure at seeing their names on the list. According to the Intercept, artists Peter Doig, Joan Jonas, Katharina Grosse, and Tomás Saraceno were among the original signatories to withdraw their support after pressure from patrons.

“I think a lot of artists are hesitant to grapple with the destruction of Gaza because of the backlash,” Eisenman told FT. “There’s been a very nasty taste of it.”

According to Eisenman, collectors warned that they would sell her work, too, offering one interpretation of The Auction: The art market doubles as a courtroom, where an artist’s success—and, with it, their livelihood—is decided through moral arbitration. The artist, separated from the proceedings by a wooden barrier, doesn’t seem welcome to take the stand. How the painting ended up in MoMA’s permanent collection, she added, was a guess. MoMA was a frequent target of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in 2024, including a major sit-in protesting some board members who had been accused of investing in Israeli arms manufacturers.

“I don’t know if Ann [Temkin, MoMA’s soon-to-be retired chief curator for painting and sculpture] had presented it that way to the board, if they would’ve wanted it in their museum,” Eisenman said. “I would say not. So I feel like it’s a real coup.”