An image from Matthew Collings: Drawings Against Genocide (Image: Zoe Strimpel)[Missing Credit]
Images in the exhibition include one of a smiling IDF soldier, with a Star of David in between their legs, standing over what appear to be a pool of blood and a human skull. The caption “New order forever now” featured several more skulls and a pool of blood.
[Missing Credit]
A different image cast doubt on Hamas’ sexual violence against Israelis on October 7, saying prominently: “No evidence that sexual violence was used on October 7”, despite testimony from survivors and a report by the Dinah project, partly funded by the British government, found that it was “widespread and systematic”, with gang rape occurring in at least six separate locations in southern Israel.
An image from Matthew Collings: Drawings Against Genocide which says there is "no evidence" of sexual violence on October 7 (Image: Zoe Strimpel).[Missing Credit]
Another accused Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, of being paid by Israel. The illustration featured what appear to be bank notes and an Israeli flag alongside Nandy with speech bubbles coming out of her mouth saying “I am a Zionist” and “I am paid by Israel”, along with the caption “Lisa Nandy serves something for sure by maybe not you”.
An drawing depicting Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary from Matthew Collings: Drawings Against Genocide (Image: Zoe Strimpel)[Missing Credit]
The Community Security Trust’s work keeping the Jewish community safe was also targeted. With a caption to one image lamenting that the organisation was invited onto the BBC “to lie about the motivations of the many Jews who condemn Israel’s genocide in Gaza” and another featured drawing of Dave Rich MBE, the organisation’s head of policy, and investigative journalist David Collier saying they “share the same MO of demanding all criticism of Israel is antisemitism”.
An image attacking CST from Matthew Collings: Drawings Against Genocide (Image: Zoe Strimpel)[Missing Credit]
An image from Matthew Collings: Drawings Against Genocide attacking investigative journalist David Collier and the CST's Dave Rich (Image: Zoe Strimpel).[Missing Credit]
A separate image also features the Nazi swastika with the star of David in a drawing of Donald Trump and references to Jeffrey Epstein. The caption of the image says “Trump thinks: hmm Epstein … Better invade Iran and murder Muslims”.
An image from Matthew Collings: Drawings Against Genocide featuring the swastika, Star of David, Donald Trump and references to Jeffrey Epstein (Image: Zoe Strimpel).[Missing Credit]
In the programme notes about the exhibition, which is being promoted by local tourist board Visit Thanet, Collings says: “These drawings are about raising consciousness about hell. Hell is still only hints for many of us but soon we'll all know the full impact. Fascism is this fireball coming up the road. We can't go on pretending hell isn't happening. Or the reasons for it aren't the real ones. Israel is the pure encapsulation of it. Zionism is this terror state's ruling ideology. Israel doesn't stand for ‘homeland.’ It stands for violently appropriating someone else's home. Control, terror, violence and lies are the forces we must see clearly and struggle against. I try do it by drawing.”
Collings, a former art critic for the Evening Standard, who in 2019 – under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn – was prevented from standing as a Labour candidate after he dismissed allegations of antisemitism within the party as a ‘witch hunt’, continued: “The current genocide, which began in 2023, is the gleeful vast expansion of numbers. Laughing remote murderers press buttons to burn babies alive in tents. This perpetration of a second Holocaust is the atrocity that fascists all over the world are thrilled by now and interested in. At last, the promise of, say, the Chile coup, aided by the US, in 1973, can be fulfilled everywhere on earth. Simply murder dissent. Exult in the impunity with which you murder and lie. Spread terror. Our political leaders and mass media tell us if we express shock out loud about genocide, we are antisemitic. The reason for the lie is to cloud the reality of mass murder. But also, even more psychotically, to draw attention to the fact that you can do anything. All political leaders, and the mass media, cover up Israel's depravity. The sheer transparent nonsense of the lie of the ‘new’ antisemitism is not lost on those perpetrating it.”
The contents of the exhibition were robustly condemned after Strimpel shared them on social media.
Israel’s charge d’affairs to the United Kingdom Daniela Grudsky commented: “This isn’t art. It isn’t free speech. It’s antisemitism – crude, aggressive, and completely indefensible. It should be treated with the full seriousness of the law.”
The CST’s Dave Rich shared Strimpel’s post and commented: “These are the kind of wild antisemitic scrawls that used to only show up in hate mail incidents. Nowadays you can get an art exhibition out of it.”
Former communities secretary Lord Gove, now editor of the Spectator magazine, commented that the matter was “truly terrible”.
In a post on Facebook, Collings appeared to make reference to being confronted by Strimpel.
He commented that she “shouted at me that as a Jew she felt she was in an unsafe place and she was going to complain to the police.”
He continued: “Someone else in the room said I’m a Jew and I don’t feel unsafe. I would say my feeling personally is that this Zionist nonsense of making all these false allegations so antisemitism can be conflated with antizionism, has run out of effectiveness. The global feeling is that Israel is the terrifying thing, and wherever a Palestinian or Iranian or Syrian or Lebanese person is, is the unsafe place. My show is at the Joseph Wales Studios in Dane Hill, and is up till the end of the month. All are welcome. Free Palestine.”
Collings, Joseph Wales Studios and Visit Thanet have been contacted for comment.
