Suspension of Art

The nation has grown almost accustomed to watching universities shut down in protest. Now, museums.

Last week, during a one-day artists' strike against "war, racism and repressions," Manhattan's Whitney Museum, Jewish Museum, and more than 50 galleries were closed. When the Metropolitan refused to shut its doors, some 150 strike participants staged a sit-out on the front steps. The Guggenheim Museum remained open, but stripped its paintings from the walls, and shrouded its sculpture lest they be damaged.

The strike's object was to suspend "business as usual" in protest. But to suspend art as usual seemed a perverse gesture with unsettling symbolic implications. "Empty walls," said Guggenheim Director Thomas Messer, "are in themselves a sobering comment on violence and coercion of every kind."

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