The online art gallery Artfinder is facing complaints about displaying offensive, racist and possibly illegal artworks in its online offering.
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) was approached by a long-time customer of the online gallery, who was shocked to see the antisemitic art on sale. UKLFI has written to Art Discovery Ltd, trading as Artfinder, pointing out that certain pictures displayed on Artfinder.com are antisemitic according to the IHRA working definition of antisemitism adopted by the UK government.
The offensive artworks include:
- “Criminal with Hat” by Wim Carrette showing the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu wearing the hat, collar and epaulettes of a Second World War Nazi SS officer along with the striped pyjamas of a concentration camp inmate.
- “Zionist Football” by Wim Carrette showing soldiers, one with a Nazi armband, violently kicking a young man.
- Fake Leaders, Benjamin by Wim Carrette – showing Netanyahu in an orange US prisoner’s uniform with his hands manacled in handcuffs standing in front of the gates of the Auschwitz death camp. Instead of “arbeit macht frei” the word “Palestine” is written on the gates. .
- Happy Genocide !! by Wim Carrette – portraying Netanyahu smiling and standing with Israeli soldiers, taking a selfie. In the background, another Israeli soldier executes a child in cold blood.
UKLFI have pointed out to Artfinder that all the above artworks are examples of comparing modern Israeli policies and politicians with Nazis and Nazi policies and are antisemitic in accordance with the IHRA Working Definition and its associated examples.
UKLFI also explained that these artworks are arguably grossly offensive and so could fall foul of Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which prohibits messages or other matter that is grossly offensive being sent by a public electronic communications network.
A spokesperson for UKLFI commented: “We hope that Artworks will remove these antisemitic and possibly illegal artworks from its online store as soon as possible.”