The backlash against the student letters is understandable--the associated harassment is too far, but it's understandable and within reason for people to feel that they were insensitive, or otherwise objectionable.<p>But artists signing a letter of this description:<p>> Thousands of artists, academics and cultural workers, including Velasco, signed the Oct. 19 open letter, which supported Palestinian liberation and criticized the silence of cultural institutions about the Israeli bombing of residents in Gaza… In it, the signatories “call for an end to the killing and harming of all civilians, an immediate cease-fire, the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the end of the complicity of our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes.” … The Oct. 19 open letter met condemnation, drawing responses by figures in the art world. On WhatsApp, campaigns were organized to dissuade advertisers from working with the magazine.<p>By far most of the substance there shouldn't be controversial, especially in the presumably liberal-leaning art world.<p>This has all been far more aggressive than the "cancel culture" decried by the right, but one hears crickets about it from the usual free speech absolutists.