Artwork from some of the country’s leading artists will go on display before being auctioned in Dublin this week to raise funds for healthcare workers operating in Gaza.
The three-day Art for Gaza exhibition, which takes place at the Copper House Gallery in Dublin 8, features the work of Dorothy Cross, Charlie Tyrell, Mick Mulcahy, Patrick Scott, Imogen Stuart, Alice Hanratty and Guggi among many others, with items ranging in price from €100 upwards. The entire proceeds of the auction, without deductions of costs, will go to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who currently have staff working in the Gaza Strip.
Leading Irish artist Dorothy Cross, who donated a bronze cast of a dead bird in a human hand to the exhibition, described the events unfolding in Gaza as a “massacre” where there was “absolutely no excuse that they have not given us a ceasefire”.
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“You can put the big words down for me, I’m not hiding, it’s a massacre,” she told The Irish Times in advance of the exhibition. “It’s outrageous, it’s horrendous.”
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Cross added: The work of MSF in Gaza is “vital” and “active”. “It’s outrageous in this day and age that Israel is doing this. “You hear these pathetic arguments on the radio as to whether this is genocide or not, wasting time. As we speak, people are dying. As we speak, people are drowning crossing the Mediterranean – it’s too much. And yet we feel so impotent. We should be out on the streets more.”
Artist Charlie Tyrell said: “We are all feeling helpless in the face of such evil being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza while those with the powers to do something to stop it sit on their hands. Artists uniting is a small but important gesture towards helping alleviate the suffering of innocent helpless Palestinians.”
The exhibition also includes artwork from James English, Domino Whisker, John Behan, Brian Maguire, Suzy O’Mullane, Maria Simmonds Gooding, Abigail O’Brien, Michael Kane, Constance Short, Michele Sweetman, Brona Anderson, Shane MacGowan and Michael Stipe.
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Sabina Higgins will open the display on Thursday, February 29th at 6pm, with a live performance from Irish-Palestinian musician and director, Róisín El Cherif. The online auction of the artworks, which is run by Whyte’s Irish Art & Collectables Auctioneers (bid.whytes.ie/), has already opened and will run till 5pm on Saturday, March 2nd.
The exhibition follows a stark warning last week from MSF secretary general Christopher Lockyear that Israeli forces continue to attack the medical charity’s convoys, while detaining medical staff, bulldozing ambulances and bombing hospitals.
“How can we deliver life-saving aid in an environment where the distinction between civilians and combatants is disregarded?” asked Mr Lockyear, speaking in front of the UN Security Council last Thursday.
“There is no health system to speak of left in Gaza. Israel’s military has dismantled hospital after hospital. What remains is so little in the face of such carnage. It is preposterous,” he said.
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