Macalester closes, then reopens, art exhibit after pushback from Muslim students

A Macalester College art exhibit has reopened after it was briefly closed to address concerns expressed by Muslim students.

The students objected to images in an art exhibition by Taravat Talepasand, a feminist Iranian-American artist based in Oregon. Some sculptures and drawings in the exhibit depict the exposed bodies of Muslim women wearing hijabs or niqabs.

College officials responded by closing the exhibit for a weekend — concealing it behind black curtains, holding a community conversation and then reopening the exhibit with a content warning and frosted glass on some of the gallery windows.

"We recognize and support the value and importance of artistic expression, including provocative art used in protest and social activism," according to a statement issued by Macalester. "Therefore, the exhibit will remain open. We also recognize community impact and understand that pieces in the exhibition have caused harm to members of our Muslim community."

College officials declined to answer further questions on the exhibit.

It was the second time in recent months that Muslim students at a private St. Paul college have raised objections to art on campus. A student at Hamline University objected last fall to images of the Prophet Muhammad shown by an art professor. The story made national headlines when Hamline declined to renew the professor's contract, prompting her to sue the school for defamation and breach of contract. The professor, Erika López Prater, is now teaching a course at Macalester.

Ikran Noor, an American studies major at Macalester, said she wished the college would take down some of the more explicit pieces. A sign taped to the exhibit doors encourages people to sign a petition that Noor launched to oppose the exhibit.

In a phone interview, Talepasand said she understood the decision to shut down the exhibition for a weekend. But posting the petition on the door was a "violation," she said.

The exhibit, called "TARAVAT," opened Jan. 27 at the Law Warschaw Gallery in the college's Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center. The mix of paintings, drawings, collage, sculpture and video "explores the cultural taboos that reflect on gender and political authority," according to a statement with the exhibit.

A neon sign in the colors of the Iranian flag reads "Woman, Life, Freedom" in English and Farsi. One drawing shows Talepasand's mother standing with the woman who funded her education.

Other images are more provocative. Some show the bodies of Muslim women wearing hijabs or niqabs, clothing meant to preserve modesty. Two drawings show a niqab-clad woman pulling up her robe to reveal lingerie. A series of porcelain sculptures show women entirely covered with a niqab except for their breasts.

Noor did not attend the exhibition but saw the art in an exhibit catalog. "I felt degraded, dehumanized," she said.

In a campus-wide email, college officials acknowledged the "disrespect, disregard, and invisibility" that many Muslim students had expressed about the exhibit. They added that other Muslims had "found powerful protest and support" in the work.

"Unfortunately ... we did not take the steps needed to demonstrate cultural sensitivity and awareness of the possible impact of the art," they said. "For this and for the harm it caused, we apologize."

Talepasand, 43 and an assistant professor of art practice at Portland State University, has had her art displayed in museums in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston. She has held exhibitions in New York and Europe.

"My artwork is unapologetic," she said. "I'm making work that's finding the similarities, not just differences, between East and West and how, in a lot of ways, they parallel."

Talepasand spent a week in Minnesota installing the exhibit and speaking with students who came to see it. On opening night, she answered questions and shared details of her craft.

A few days after Talepasand returned to Oregon, she heard about the backlash at Macalester. "I really didn't argue about the closure for the weekend or the pause," she said. "But nobody told me about the black curtain veiling all the windows. That's a whole other level of censorship."

The curtains came down, and she requested that the gallery add a content warning.

Talepasand said the sculptures showing the bare breasts of niqabi women invoke the Venus of Willendorf, a Paleolithic statuette considered one of the oldest surviving works of art. The drawings of a woman exposing her lingerie are based a book written by Iranian native Roxana Shirazi, who gave Talepasand permission to model the images.

"Here's a woman that is taking power in her body, that autonomy that we are talking about still today," Talepasand said.