The photographer Nan Goldin once again publicly addressed Israel’s war in Gaza this week, this time during a talk given at the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival in France.
Goldin, the recipient of Kering’s Women in Motion award this year, took the stage at the Théâtre Antique on Tuesday for a discussion with acclaimed novelist Édouard Louis, who read a statement about the conflict alongside her.
“We say this is horrible, and we think this is enough,” Louis said. “But this is not enough.” He went on to add: “Our own field has betrayed us.”
In a video of the talk posted to Instagram by Louis, one audience member can be heard shouting at Goldin as she speaks, saying something that sounds like, “How can you say that?” Louis wrote on Instagram that a woman had shouted, “It’s not true.”
“It’s true,” Goldin says in that video, adding, “On October 7, 1,300 Israeli civilians were killed. Now 75,000 were killed. Whose life matters? Whose lives matter?” A round of applause follows.
According to the Art Newspaper, Goldin also said, “Anti-Zionism has been totally conflated with antisemitism, which is convenient for Israel. This has made the rise of real antisemitism more dangerous. Anti-Zionism is weaponized to shut the mouth of anyone criticizing the violent actions of the Israeli government.”
Goldin has been a vocal critic of Israel’s military action in Gaza. In Berlin last year, during the opening for her show at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Goldin specifically addressed the situation in Germany, where pro-Palestine artists have described facing censorship.
“The ICC is talking about genocide. The UN is talking about genocide. Even the Pope is talking about genocide,” Goldin said at the Neue Nationalgalerie last year. “Yet we’re not supposed to talk about this as genocide. Are you afraid to hear this, Germany?”
