A group of 50 artists and cultural figures has accused Judy Chicago and Pussy Riot founding member Nadya Tolakonnikova of “artwashing,” according to a letter sent to the artists first reported by the Art Newspaper.
Chicago and Tolakonnikova’s collaborative project “What If Women Ruled the World?” is set to open at the museum on September 25 and will be on view until the end of the year. The letter calls on the pair to cancel the exhibition, questioning “the nature of such an exhibition that claims to speak the language of feminism while ignoring the fact that Israel violates women’s rights every day,” per the Art Newspaper. “According to UN Women’s analysis from 19 May 2025, more than 28,000 women and girls have been killed in Gaza since October 2023… To speak about feminism within an institution of a state that perpetrates such atrocities while ignoring them is hypocrisy.”
The Tel Aviv Museum of Art’s website identifies “What If Women Ruled the World?” as a Judy Chicago exhibition, with a “participatory quilt” credited to Nadya Tolokonnikova. The show features a physical quilt with photos of women and their answers to the titular question, stitched together in geometric panels. Visitors will be able to contribute their own answers via a digital component to the project sponsored by the Web3 platform Dminti, which works with artists and museums to create participatory artworks.
What If Women Ruled the World? started out a series of handmade banners that Chicago made in collaboration with Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior’s creative director, for the brand’s spring/summer 2020 haute couture collection. The tapestries were also shown at Jeffrey Deitch’s New York gallery later that year.
Tolakonnikova was the first to answer all 11 questions posed by Chicago when the project first launched at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami in December 2022. Subsequently, thousands of people from around the world submitted answers, both online and in person. In addition to Miami, gatherings have taken place in Mexico City, Los Angeles, Paris, and New York.
Despite her involvement in the genesis of the project, Tolakonnikova told the Art Newspaper that she “is not currently involved in any decisions connected to the work or where it is shown.”
As of now, the museum is committed to showing the work as planned. Tel Aviv Museum of Art director Tania Coen-Uzzielli shared the letter-writers’ horror at “the devastation and pain in Gaza” yet rejected “the notion that cancelling exhibitions serves as a meaningful response to the destruction around us.”
Chicago did not immediately respond to ARTnews’s request for comment.
