Artists Get Organized
1970 - 1980

A prolific decade of art by both Palestinians and those in solidarity of the cause, with many important efforts that tried to bring artists together and people together.

Rabita / The League of Palestinian Artists
After the growing unity among artists during the end of the 1960s, there was an effort to more formally organize together. An artist association was established in 1973 by a group of artists that included Sliman Mansour, Nabil Anani, Isam Badr, and more.

Samia Halaby refers to this group as the Rabita (رابطة), while Kamal Boullata and others call it The League of Palestinian Artists. (While both names apply, Rabita will be the name used below.)

Palestinian painter Sliman Mansour was born in 1947 and spent his childhood in Bethlehem and Al Quds, then under Jordanian sovereignty after the 1948 Nakba.

Mansour excelled in art from a young age and was planning to go abroad for art school. After the 1967 Naksa where Israeli forces seized the West Bank, however, he was exposed to a greater understanding about Palestinian history and stories. This greatly influenced the work Mansour would soon make, incorporating symbols of Palestinian identity.

For the Rabita overall, they felt that accessibility was important. So they took their art and utilized the easy production of posters to be able to efficiently spread the work, just as the PLO and others had adopted. Mansour says the united artists shared common themes often integrated across the group – including prisoners, martyrs, the Earth, Al Quds, land confiscation, eviction, sumud, and roots.

In her book Liberation Art of Palestine, Samia Halaby says that the Rabita were also intentional about how they captured these ideas, making sure to emphasize Palestinian history and culture.

This included when taking trips to villages to paint – where the Palestinian artists would ignore any settlements or new Zionist infrastructure and instead focus on the Palestinian land and buildings that had been in existence. Halaby writes:

“It is a declaration of artistic war against the Orientalist Painters who came to Palestine as part of the colonization process to paint what is to them the quaint villages of 'The Holy Land.’

Members of the Rabita carried their supplies and traveled to villages, working directly from nature. The return to the village was a return to undamaged Palestine.”

Their first group show in 1975 focused on many of these subjects. It opened in Al Quds and soon traveled to Ramallah, Nablus, Jericho, and to Gaza – before later heading to Amman and London as well. Mansour and artist Vera Tamari said the exhibit was a landmark in the formation of a popular Palestinian art movement. “To most people, this art was the ultimate expression of patriotic commitment,” they noted. “The aesthetic value of the works was secondary."

These exhibitions would take place in schools, town halls, public libraries, and any other places that could host – given the lack of actual art spaces. They became a community event and continued to gain traction in bringing locals out to shows.

Additional exhibitions hosted in the 70s also had specific themes such as the Palestinian Village, the Day of the Prisoner, the Year of the Child, and the Day of the Land.

The Rabita’s exhibitions were popular with the Palestinian community. That also meant that Israeli powers soon took notice and decided it was an issue.

In Palestinian Art, Kamal Boullata writes:

“Initially, the military authorities monitoring Palestinian cultural events did not assign any importance to what they regarded as marginal activities.

The Palestinian public, on the other hand, suffering from both repression and defeat, regarded each artistic work that came to light under the grim Israeli military presence as a source of national pride and self-reassurance.

Gradually, exhibitions became rallying events that the occupation authorities came to see as emblematic of a collective national identity and crucibles of defiant resistance to occupation. Strict censorship of all art exhibitions followed, and even those that received permits from the military authorities were prone to have their openings raided by soldiers, the exhibition space closed down, and the crowd dispersed.”

Samia Halaby says that an attempt was made to burn the art of the Rabita’s third group show in 1976, but it had luckily been stored at a location outside of the exhibition hall. However, the Ramallah opening was still disrupted by the military. The fourth group show, in 1979, was dedicated to the Year of the Child. Work was made looking at the safety, health, and education of children under occupation. When the show traveled to Gaza, artworks were stored at the Red Crescent offices. However, all paintings were then destroyed by arsonists.

In 1979, Gallery79 was established in Ramallah by another Rabita artist, Isam Badr. In another group exhibition there in September 1980, the Israeli military governor and his soldiers confiscated a handful of paintings and posters. That same month, Sliman Mansour’s first ever solo show only lasted four hours before being shut down. Shortly after, the gallery was closed.

During this time, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) also created another group – the Union of Artists for Palestinians – to organize artists in the diaspora, as the Rabita only included those in occupied territories of Palestine.

1978’s International Art Exhibition For Palestine
Beirut continued to be an artistic center for displaced Palestinians in the 1970s – as it had been since the ‘50s – and was argued by some as the most crucial place for Palestinian art in general. Displaced creatives there made work around their experiences in exile and the nostalgia they had for their homeland.

It was fitting that Beirut was the home for the International Art Exhibition For Palestine in 1978. The show was organized by Mona Saudi, a Jordanian sculptor who ran the Plastic Arts section of the PLO.

The exhibit opened at Beirut Arab University in Lebanon with art that included around 200 artists from 27 different countries – Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Peru, Poland, Romania, Spain, Syria, US, Venezuela, and Yemen.

Mona Saudi’s curator note in the exhibition catalog reads:

“After 1948, the Palestinian art-expression, whether through word of colors, presumed a tragic form, expressing the miserable situation of usurpation under Israeli occupation or under the tutelage of oppressing Arab regimes. With the birth of the revolution, there started the process of creating the new man: self-confident, aware of his capability to restore his right and raise his voice.

The armed struggle promoted a creative atmosphere among the Palestinian people and in the Arab world in particular and in outside world in general. This creativity growed and cristalized itself along with the growth of the revolution.

(Mona Saudi’s note continues:)

As a result, the Arab artists adopted the Palestinian cause as an art-content and expressed it by creating advanced, modern art styles that emphasizes the unty of the struggle and the problems of Arab people, as well as its deep-rooted links to the Palestinian cause. Other artists all around the world adopted the subject of the Palestinian struggle in their art-expression, showing the human essence of our battle.

All the works in this exhibition are gifts from the artists to the Palestine Liberation Organization. At the end of the exhibition, all these works are going to constitute the nucleus of the 'Museum of Solidarity with Palestine.' During the exhibition, we will try to push forward idea of establishing this museum and to put up an international committee, including artists, as well as other friends, so as to put the idea into action. We hope this museum to be a permanent center for developing and strengthening the militant activities and relations between our people and the peoples of the world as well as our artists and the world artists for the sake of the cause of freedom and peace.”

In Samia Halaby’s book Liberation Art of Palestine, she writes:

“The catalog contains many messages of solidarity from artists, including one from the internationally known Latino painter Roberto Matta, who contributed a pastel titled Palestinian Martyrs.

From Spain, internationally established and deeply respected artists such as Edouardo Chilida, Joan Miró, and Antonio Tàpies, contributed works for the exhibition.”

There were also Palestinian artists who participated – including Tamam Al-Akhal, Ismail Shammout, Sliman Mansour, Kamal Boullata, Ibrahim Ghanniam, Vladimir Tamari, and more.

The show would also go on to travel internationally – such as in Japan, Norway, and Iran. It was also exhibited locally at the Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon, home to many displaced Palestinians who loved the art. The catalog was even delivered to fedayeen fighters in the field.

It was the most ambitious and expansive art initiative to date for the PLO at that point. The exhibit was a clear success in showcasing global solidarity and collecting pieces for the intended future museum.

Poster Art
Posters had started to become a popular method in the 1960s to share messages and art due to their affordability, ease of production, and ability for mass-distribution.

This continued in full force into the 1970s behind the PLO, PFLP, DFLP, and Fatah – as well as other groups or individuals looking to capture the struggle through these means. The General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS), for example, spread on campuses across Europe.

To make posters, these different groups sometimes worked directly with Palestinian artists, though not exclusively. When they did, the the artists had a lot of freedom to experiment in presenting different visual approaches.

These posters told stories of martyrs, feyadeen, refugees, workers, prisoners, and more. They often incorporated national symbols and phrases as well.

The designs also captured both modern and past historic moments, including tragedies that were seldom covered in international media, like the Tel al-Zaatar massacre in 1976.

Certain annual commemorations, such as for Land Day, with the first in 1976, become recurring themes in posters.

These were intended for an international audience, including the larger Arab region, but in particular they applied to a Western audience that so often dehumanized Palestinians.

While the resistance fighters took up the most dangerous and important fight of armed struggle, the cultural approach worked to support and spread messages of the people.

PLO representatives also launched poster contests in places such as Poland and Japan for people to submit their own depictions of the Palestinian struggle.

Sometimes, non-Palestinian artists also were brought in to work on poster designs. For example, in 1979 the PFLP faction of the PLO hired Switzerland-born artist Marc Rudin, who had been very politically active since the 1960s and making posters in support for the Palestinian since the mid-1970s. Also working under the name of “Jihad Mansour” in his designs, Rudin would go on to work with the PFLP over the next decade.

Other artists around the world also created posters to show their own country’s support, or just their own personal perspective, in unity for the Palestinian cause. But no matter who was designing it, the form itself took on its own life.

The Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question writes:

“The study of posters differs from other sub-fields in art history because posters are at the intersection of an artistic practice and a skill in the advertising industries. A poster is a medium reproduced in serial editions using off-set, lithography, and serigraphy. As such, its monetized value can never reach that of an art work.

However, a poster can be as much a masterful accomplishment as any work of art, and because of its serial nature, its modes of dissemination make it sometimes more impactful and more subversive.

In the realms of militant and politically radicalized artistic practice, posters hold a special place because artists regard them as an instance of creative expression geared toward popular mobilization. In the conventions of poster design, the visual composition and graphic elements of a poster should speak to a decipherable collective imaginary, use widely known symbols, stylization and strong contrasts.”

A Decade of Resistance Cinema
The Palestine Film Unit of the PLO relocated to Beirut in the early 1970s and was renamed the Palestinian Cinema Institute. They continued to make work documenting the resistance fighters and ongoing struggle for liberation. They wanted to attract global attention for the Palestinian revolution and mobilize international solidarity.

The Institute was also in contact with film-makers from other countries who “viewed the camera as a revolutionary tool in the people’s struggle,” sometimes leading to collaborations.

Mustafa Abu Ali headed the department from 1973 to 1975 and would go on to direct over 30 films himself. This included Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza (1973) – a half-century before the Gaza genocide would take place.

Another notable film Abu Ali worked on in this period was Palestine in the Eye (1976) about his fellow Film Unit co-founder, Hani Jawharieh, who had been martyred while filming for their team the same year the film was made.

Palestine in the Eye documents Jawharieh’s life and features relatives, friends, and others discussing his determination. A quote from that film also expresses the larger goals of all of the Palestine Cinema Institute during this period:

“Resistance cinema is a cinema that expresses the aspiration of a people. It records their struggle for freedom. It communicates their experience to the rest of the world.”

The Film Unit’s work traveled and was shown in countries and festivals around the world. A dedicated Palestine Film Festival also ran in Baghdad during 1973, 1976, and 1980.

Khadijeh Habashneh had married Mustafa Abu Ali in 1968 and had volunteered with the group since its early origins in the late ‘60s.

In 1976, Habashneh organized an official archive for the group’s works, which she was in charge of. That year, she also established a cinematheque that screened films from other liberation groups all over the world (Cuba, Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union).

Habashneh became a director later in the ‘70s, too, with Children Nevertheless (1979) about orphans from the Tal al-Zaatar massacre, as well as an unfinished film about women’s role in the resistance.

Other Palestinian factions like the PFLP and DFLP had started to use film as a tool during the 1970s as well. The medium was seen as a valuable for capturing and communicating ideas, and preserving history.