Sydney Biennale Board Severs Ties with Controversial Sponsorship

Today the Biennale of Sydney Board announced that is has severed the ties with immigration detention camp funding, which were highly controversial and contested as illegal, for breach of international law. 

This is the outcome of a concerted campaign by the prominent international Biennale artists themselves, ten of whom withdrew their work from the Biennale (see Boycott the 19th Sydney Biennale )in protest.

When international governments questioned the links, (as reported in the Guardian today) the Biennale (see Biennale of Sydney) announced the resignation of chairman and major sponsor director.

You can read about the campaign by artists in their open letters on the Daily Fugue site,  with commentary from an art critic and artist who supported Biennale artists who withdrew, through this difficult and challenging campaign, and wrote about it on this blog.

"I will be continuing to write about the Biennale, and the new developments in the context of the changing art world. I will be interviewing artists at the Biennale, about their ideas and works, and the changing art world in the contexts which are emerging." 

Ruth Skilbeck 7.3.14

BIENNALE ARTISTS BOYCOTT SUCCESS- SPLIT FROM REFUGEE DETENTION CAMP FUNDS TIES

 Biennale Boycott Success- Ties to 'Refugee Processing' Detention Funds Severed Today

The Biennale Boycott has been successful. Today the chairman of the Biennale and also chairman of the major sponsor detention camps management corporation, voluntarily resigned.
The Biennale Board and organisers made the announcement that Belgiorn-Nettis, has resigned his position from the festival, and effectively ties are now severed with the controversial funds, the outcome that the boycotting artists have been holding out for.
The Board statement says in part: "We have listened to the artists who are the heart of the Biennale and decided to end our partnership with Transfield effective immediately."
The chairman of the Sydney Biennale, who is also the chairman of Transfield, a contractor for immigration detention centres, has resigned.

It is now official the the Biennale of Sydney has ended its sponsorship ties with Transfield after 41 years. Today Luca Begiorno-Nettis resigned after 14 years as Chair of the Board of the Biennale.

This means that the artists boycott, and withdrawal, has been effective in making change, the result is clear: the Biennale will no longer be directly funded by profits of illegal mandatory detention of asylum seekers, and another strong message sent is that art and artists refuse to be co-opted 'to launder the reputations of companies who profit from Australia's racist border policies' as one social media artist post said today.

If anyone was in any doubt that art can be an effective force of change - and political action for the good of humanity, this proves otherwise. The art world is changing and this is the real evidence of its power for good.

On one of artist Boycott discussion pages, is the suggestion that: 'this is a great time to identify other pressure points in the supply chain of mandatory detention so we can work together to bring it to an end.' Showing the refocus of art on the real world, beyond postmodern theory, to address and engage with the most important and complex issues of our global time of rapid changes. And humanity at the centre of the art world beyond the recent theory of the "post-human" and "death of the author". This is a time for universal humanism in art and culture, to make change, to save the world and humanity.
This is part of a new movement in the art world and driven by artists that is happening around the world. Australia is now part- the centre of- of a historic moment.
This is the first time that artists boycotted and protested from a Biennale on political grounds.
This will set a precedent and shows what's more that Australia can lead the art world!

Whilst there is research to be done into what the actual separations mean, and what if any links are left, the symbolic resignation sends a clear message and shows that change has come.
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis himself said today, as published in the Guardian:

"Yesterday I learnt that some international government agencies are beginning to question the decision of the Biennale’s board to stand by Transfield [...].

“I have tendered my resignation from the Biennale board in the hope that some blue sky may open up over this 19th Biennale of Sydney,” he said

Belgiorno-Nettis said in the statement: “I wear two hats: one as chair of the Biennale of Sydney and the other as a director of Transfield Holdings; both organisations conceived by my father and nurtured by my family over many decades.   (Guardian 7.2.2014)

Thank you to Mr Belgiorno-Nettis doing the right thing and unlinking the difficult links. Perhaps the only graceful move that could save the day.
As an art critic and artist who was openly boycotting in support of the artists boycott, I shall now be accepting the art media writers invitation to preview the Biennale.



Ruth Skilbeck 7.2.2014



About the author:
Ruth Skilbeck, PhD, is an art critic, artist and writer. Her first book The Writer's Fugue: Musicalization, Trauma and Subjectivity in the Literature of Modernity, which is based on her PhD, will be available in 2016.
Her first novel The Antipode Room- Australian Fugue is available on Amazon.

Kerbstone, or Single Mother Academic Curb Your Enthusiasm

Kerbstone: Single Mother Academic Curb Your Enthusiasm

Yesterday an incident occurred - in my short absence whilst I went to Sydney to hear the talk by international ex Sydney Biennale artists, Libia Castro and Olaf Olafsson who have withdrawn their work in protest to the ties to detention camps profit of the major sponsors, Transfield a construction and infrastructure corporation that is also involved in arts sponsorship. (Which I have been writing about on this blog).
When I returned after a busy day - 3 hours each way on the slow train (there is not fast train) 6 hours on the train in all and in between a few hours at the talk, at Sydney College of the Arts then talking with the artists, about their new and ongoing work that they are still making with Refugee Art Projects artists and a psychologist dealing with trauma- an exciting and significant work that I look forward to participating in and reviewing here soon, when I returned almost at midnight, I found an unpleasant surprise awaiting me:

A $1,212.00 fine, in two almost impossible to read ticket details under the windscreen wiper of my poor old car, that died many months ago and has been parked outside my house, as I cannot park it next to the house on the section of my property where I as a citizen should and could (if I had means) be able to park as I pay rates, for basic council service, and everyone else in my street and the surrounding street, has access to their own property/yards off the street but me. That is because the kerbstone is old- and over 100 years old- a 12inch deep solid convict hewn kerbstone between the gutter and pavement is too high for me to drive over, if it was not, I would have simply parked my car next to my house, and would not have this problem now, a problem of poverty which is recurring and seems to plague me.

But I am surprised and dismayed, I had spoken with a ranger a few months ago and explained that it was my house, my car, I have not used it unregistered, it is waiting until I can either afford to have it fixed and registered, or to have it taken away, by a wreckers yard and he said that was all right to leave it there, until I had been able to raise the money (thousands of dollars) to have the kerbstone altered myself, so that I could drive over it. He said the council it seems does not provide that service, although I certainly do not own the kerbstone in the public street, yet it seems I have to be the one to pay to have it modified. Why?
To make it worse, this is the second time that due to lack of money, I have been fined $1200 for having my own car parked- unused- outside my own house (the property I pay annual hefty rates to the council for), as I have not been able to afford to have it registered, and have not been able to afford to have the kerbstones, council property modified so that I can simply do what every other neighbour around here does, drive their car to sit next to their house.

I am the one who is now hit with massive fines because I have these massive problems of kerbstones on the street outside my property which I pay rates for and have done since 1995.

I wrote a short story based on this, and the impossible situation facing single women, older women, divorced mothers, and precarious workers in today's economy, when a resistant public thing, like the height of a kerb in a public street, can make it impossible for some to cross, and remain solvent.
Whereas for others, the men who are able to (illegally but they do it) make their own modifications to council kerbstones with hammers and tools put in their own kerb modification, and driveways, or find the metal plates that they use as ramps to drive up.
When I first had this issue, I rang the council and asked if they could help me, if they had any ramps I could use, or did they know where  I could purchase those metal ramps, to drive my car up next to my house. I was told that these are illegal. But there are lots of them around here, I can see them!
Does not matter they are illegal.
Still it seems they are not fined.
Or they would not still be there in use on the same street I live on.

The response was a couple of days later- the first of  $1200 fines, that I have been penalised with in the last three years. So far with yesterday's fine that makes almost $2,500 because I have not been able to drive over the council kerbstone and park the car next to my house, where it is allowed to sit unregistered until I have the means to fix it. Meanwhile it is sitting in front of the house, instead of the side of the house, on the public street, because I cannot drive up and over the public kerb which for some unknown reason the council has not modified, even though they have done works on the streets in this area for the past three years now including modifying the kerb just a few metres further up the street so that people can more easily and safely cross the road.
But not for me.

Even though they know of my problem as I have discussed it and they "gave me permission" to put in a driveway and have the kerb moderated so long as it was using the plans they specified. A council officer came out and measured the kerb and sent me the plans with the legal gradient.
This only for me of course. My neighbours next to me and all the way up and down the street, have done it, or someone has for them. At whatever angles they arrive at.
I was told the house over the road was illegally done,
Still I am the one who is penalised for staying within the law and not simply finding a way with metal or wood to make a ramp.

So it is a case of a single woman penalised for not having the balls to break the law which is what so many do, by having the physical strength and means of doing it themselves.
And in a place where the council does not help by modifying their infrastructures so that rate-paying citizens can access their own properties.
At least not for single women in precarious life positions.

Instead they fine them.
Huge fine which have the potential to break them.
It was the same when I was working as a casual and contract academic, never able to make ends meet year round, because they would never give enough work, to make this security- and to enable me to do things like put in a driveway and have the kerbstones in the public street modified so that I could have access to the yard of my own house which I pay for.
My story Kerbstones, Single Mother Academic Curb Your Enthusiasm, will appear in a collection of my short writings, Breaking Away to be published later this year.

It seems that it is still relevant.


Ruth Skilbeck 7.3.2014

Boycott/Withdraw/Protest/Dialogue- What's the Difference? An Art Critic's Diary

Boycott/Withdraw/Protest/Dialogue- What's the Difference? An Art Critic's Diary

Semantics has played quite a significant part so far in the volcanic eruptions which have rocked the 19th Biennale of Sydney on its foundations.

For a start there has been much discussion over the ambiguous title, which achieved a whole new, and seemingly alarming significance, once the revelations of the links to detention centre funding, and the implications of that reported in the media, recently became known by artists and audiences alike.
Since then there have been heated, passionate, emotional, and in some ways confused debates and arguments via social media and in meetings, which seem to pivot on and separate people on the meanings they read into the three key terms, boycott, withdraw, protest.

It seems that 'boycott' a word that is a common term in some parts of the world, is here greeted with great alarm, and incites strong and defensive reactions amongst some. Although the definition of boycott is "to abstain from buying or using" at least in the way I have been using it, and I assume many others, is not or should not be alarming. Simply abstaining from going to the Biennale, is hardly worth becoming defensive and even aggressive about, as I have witnessed.

I have used the term as I am showing solidarity and support for the artists who have chosen to boycott the biennale by abstaining from using the venue, and also not buying into less immediately obvious aspects to do with the exchange of their cultural capital, that as artists via their art works they have in large amounts, as the representatives of their countries in a large international exhibition. This is a choice based on ethical reasons, and it is also primarily perhaps too in the context of self critique and critique of the art world and its contexts which is part of being a contemporary artist, and also an art writer and critic. And for Olafur Olafsson and Libia Castro for example whose artist talk I went to today at the Sydney College of the Arts, after hearing them speak at a lecture of Tuesday evening at COFA, this is a main point. SInce 1913, Olafur points out , when Duchamp made his famous statement by inverting a common object, a urinal literally turning it into an 'art form'; it has been the context which is of prime significance in the art world, in understanding art.

It does not make much sense, in my view, to think about artists who are boycotting and art writers who say they are boycotting - as if they are outside the dialogue. They are framing the dialogue, in the sense of introducing the boycott as an intervention which then has compelled a debate which is a form of self critique and art world critique.

This is part of an international context of dialogue and critique, that seems to be perhaps not well known or widely known in Australia,  which is to do with the ways that art is exhibited, and especially in the contexts of huge spectacular events which Biennales around the world have become over the years.

This is also in the context that was precipitated by the global financial crises and the astronomical prices that contemporary art was fetching before this happened, and still can fetch in some cases. And at the same time there has been a huge increase in precarious labour, in the art world, as everywhere. This calls for new critiques by artists and writers.
It is artists and art critics(some) who are responding to these changes, and driving the debates, in their works and most of all in the new way of their actions, and what is happening in Sydney has historical meaning in this context.

Meanwhile some artists are using the word 'withdrawn' though in effect it means the same.

And there are others, most perhaps who are not amongst the Biennale artists, who are talking about protest and protest from within.

This is all part of a wider dialogue that is happening now, in live action, amongst diverse groups of people.

But the main context of this is the Biennale itself, the art world event and so it is a form of critique of that engaged in by artists and art writers, such as myself.

 For example, I say that I am boycotting the Biennale, but this does not mean that I am not participating in the Biennale debates, on the contrary I am writing about the Biennale artists who have withdrawn, boycotting or protesting.  I have written about almost nothing else on this blog for weeks now, even though I have two books that I have written that are about to go up on Amazon - and I do have a lot to say about those too. Instead although I have said that I am boycotting, taking that position in the dialogue, I have engaged already to quite an extreme length with the debate of the Biennale.

I will also be writing and talking here about other events that are happening in Sydney, on these themes, for example Isaac Julien's exhibition on the themes, of Art and Corporate Sponsorship, which opens next week at Roslyn Oxley9 gallery. I will also be writing about the new exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales: Afghanistan: hidden treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, which opens tomorrow.

The media release states: "This exhibition will showcase more than 230 precious artefacts which were uncovered from secret vaults and revealed to the world in 2003. The treasures had been kept safe by a group of courageous staff from the National Museum to protect them from bombing and looting after years of war."

This is part of the wider context of the dialogue that is happening now on the links between wars, conflict, refugees, immigration policies, in the art world, where so many artists and audience are also affected, as refugees, exiles, and travellers and citizens. We are all involved in some way in this issue.
So despite using the words boycott, or withdraw, this does not mean being outside the debate, this is part of the dialogue, and it is historic dialogue.

The art world is changing, and it seems very likely that the huge art world events of Biennales, may well scale down, or even transform into some other form. Meanwhile there are plenty of alternatives that are emerging, all of which shows that the art world is undergoing a new phase, and changes, which means that however you call it, this is a very exciting and significant time- for artists, and art lovers from all backgrounds.

Ruth Skilbeck,  6.3.2014

History of the Sydney Biennale Boycott

History of the 19th Biennale of Sydney Boycott.

The first open letter that opened the conversation about the ethics of funds from detention camps profits, funding the Sydney Biennale, via sponsor Transfield, was published on February 4 via a new research website, Cross Border Operational Matters. This is a website that posts on the 'most damaging of Australian policies'- mandatory detention research.

This dialogue on arts sponsorship and the Biennale, is now in live and constantly evolving action, with artists announcing they are withdrawing, and arts works and writers (myself) boycotting the Biennale, and almost every day a new letter is published on social media, through the public forum of blogs, and on facebook pages.

Crossborder Operational Matters, a research blog and website, is reporting on and publishing open letters and articles on the new conversations emerging around the artists withdrawal and boycott of the 19th Biennale of Sydney, on ethical grounds, in response to the news of the detention camp profit funding of art and artists, on the part of the major sponsor Transfield, a multi-national construction corporation, based in Sydney, which has been interlinked with the Sydney Biennale, through funding since its inception in 1973. 

The Operational Matters media site published the first open letter calling for a boycott, by Matthew Kiem, design academic, based in Sydney, who objected to the thought of taking his students to the Biennale, when Transfield the major sponsor, was making profits, syphoned into the funding for the Biennale.

Open letter from Matthew Kiem on Operational Matters sites 4 February 2014.
Read the letter here:
http://xborderoperationalmatters.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/art-educators-biennale/.    

This prompted arts writer Ben Eltham to approach the site and ask if he could reproduce the letter in an article that he wrote for Arts Hub (published 6.2.14).

At much the same time, on 8 February I wrote an open letter on my blog, here, announcing that I would boycott on ethical grounds, and outlining my reasons from the perspective of an arts writer and art critic, with a current invitation to preview the Sydney Biennale on the media tour, on 20 March. I will instead be writing about the alternatives, the many other arts events in Sydney at the same time, and most of all the artists who have withdrawn their works in protest.

I am boycotting the Biennale, as outlined on this blog, and so will not be accepting that invitation. Instead I am writing about the alternatives that are rapidly coming into being, and the dialogue that is emerging around this complex issue. This is a live issue, and I am reporting on it and commenting, as it unfolds. Later this year I will publish a book which will reflect on what is happening now.

Meanwhile, here is some  information (at his link) about the groundbreaking Cross Borders Operational Matters site, that started the dialogue in publishing the first open letter, the form through which this dialogue has taken place, and continues to unfold. The researchers can be contacted at:maschine.research@gmail.com.

Ruth Skilbeck  5.3. 2014

NB This is provisional of course, to keep the record as events unfold, and will be updated on this blog. 

Mandatory Detention Research contact:
maschine.research@gmail.com"

Why I Will Be Boycotting the 2014 Sydney Biennale- Protest Refugee Detention Centre Profiteering in Corporate Sponsorship by Ruth Skilbeck, Feb 8, 2014

http://ruthskilbeck.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/why-i-will-be-boycotting-2014-sydney.html

Biennale Boycott: Starting the Conversation- a Research Resource- XBorders Site

"Linking practical efforts and changing the conversation on Australian border politics.

For information and comment on specific actions linked to on this website, please contact the relevant person or group via the comments section on that item.

General enquiries can be made via Twitter: @xborderOps

For specific comment on infrastructure and supply-chain information, contact the research group, Mapping Supply Chains & Infrastructure Networks (MaSChINe) via: maschine.research@gmail.com"

Quoted from the Cross Borders Operational Matters website.

Another Four Artists Withdraw from 19th Biennale of Sydney, on Ethical Grounds

Another Four Artists Withdraw from Biennale Sydney on Ethical Grounds

Today a further four artists have announced their 'boycott' of the Sydney Biennale by withdrawing their art from exhibition in the 19^th Biennale of Sydney, due to the funding of Transfield the multinational sponsor which is running Australia’s detention camps condemned for human rights abuses by the UN.

The latest four artists who have withdrawn their works in protest are: Agnieszka Polska, Sara van der Heide,  Nicoline van Harskamp and Nathan Gray.

This artist boycott follows the boycott of the first five artists announced last week (letter on this blog) in an open letter to the Biennale, stating that they would not allow their works to be used to endorse the profits of detention camps and to art-wash the image of an unethical corporate sponsor, Transfield. They have since made further statements and three of the boycotting artists spoke at a public lecture in Sydney last night, which I attended, and spoke with the boycotting artists afterwards (which I will write up and post here soon).

Some artists are using the term ‘withdrawal’ rather than boycott— but it is the same thing, Olafur Ólafsson, ex-Biennale artist from Iceland, said to me last night when I spoke with him after a public lecture in Sydney.

I will write more about that conversation soon.

Reproduced in full for the record, below, is the Open Letter by the four artists announcing their boycott, today and first published today on the Biennale Artists Working Group  website.

March 5th 2014

After much consideration we: Agnieszka Polska, Sara van der Heide, Nicoline van Harskamp and Nathan Gray, have decided to withdraw our works from the 19th Biennale of Sydney, because of its relation to Transfield, a company involved in the Australian government policy of mandatory detention.

Our motivations reflect those outlined in the statement issued by artists Ögüt, Castro, Ólafsson, Sofo and de Vietri on February 26th, added as a reference with this letter. They close their statement by expressing their hope that others will join them in “solidarity with all those who are working towards a better future for asylum seekers.” Our withdrawal is such an act of solidarity.

We have requested the Biennale that our withdrawal be registered on their website and signposted at the physical site of exhibition, so that this action will not be unnoticed.

With Regards,

Agnieszka Polska, Sara van der Heide,  Nicoline van Harskamp and Nathan Gray

Contact: 2014workinggroup@gmail.com

The first open letter from 46 Sydney Biennale artists in protest at the detention camps funding:

Open Letter to the Board of the Sydney Biennale From Participating Artists

19 February 2014

To the Board of Directors of the Biennale of Sydney,

We are a group of artists - Gabrielle de Vietri, Bianca Hester, Charlie Sofo, Nathan Gray, Deborah Kelly, Matt Hinkley, Benjamin Armstrong, Libia Castro, Ólafur Ólafsson, Sasha Huber, Sonia Leber, David Chesworth, Daniel McKewen, Angelica Mesiti, Ahmet Öğüt, Meriç Algün Ringborg, Joseph Griffiths, Sol Archer, Tamas Kaszas, Krisztina Erdei, Nathan Coley, Corin Sworn, Ross Manning, Martin Boyce, Callum Morton, Emily Roysdon, Søren Thilo Funder, Mikhail Karikis, Mikala Dwyer, Rosa Barba, Sara van der Heide, Henna-Riikka Halonen, Shannon Te Ao, Hadley+Maxwell, Ane Hjort Guttu, Yael Bartana, Emily Wardill, Agnieszka Polska, Bodil Furu, Eglė Budvytytė, Eva Rothschild, Annette Stav Johanssen, Synnøve G. Wetten, Tori Wrånes, Siri Hermansen, James Angus
- all participants in the 19th Biennale of Sydney.

We are writing to you about our concerns with the Biennale’s sponsorship arrangement with Transfield.¹

We would like to begin with an affirmation and recognition of the Biennale staff, other sponsors and donors, and our fellow artists. We maintain the utmost respect for Juliana Engberg’s artistic vision and acknowledge the support and energy that the Biennale staff have put into the creation of our projects and this exhibition. We acknowledge that this issue places the Biennale team in a difficult situation.

However, we want to emphasise that this issue has presented us with an opportunity to become aware of, and to acknowledge, responsibility for our own participation in a chain of connections that links to human suffering; in this case, that is caused by Australia’s policy of mandatory detention.

We trust that you understand the implications of Transfield’s recent move to secure new contracts to take over garrison and welfare services in Australia’s offshore immigration detention centres on Manus Island and in Nauru. We have attached for your information, a document that outlines our understanding of the links between the Biennale, Transfield and Australia’s asylum seeker policy.

We appeal to you to work alongside us to send a message to Transfield, and in turn the Australian Government and the public: that we will not accept the mandatory detention of asylum seekers, because it is ethically indefensible and in breach of human rights; and that, as a network of artists, arts workers and a leading cultural organisation, we do not want to be associated with these practices.

Our current circumstances are complex: public institutions are increasingly reliant on private finance, and less on public funding, and this can create ongoing difficulties. We are aware of these complexities and do not believe that there is one easy answer to the larger situation.

However, in this particular case, we regard our role in the Biennale, under the current sponsorship arrangements, as adding value to the Transfield brand. Participation is an active endorsement, providing cultural capital for Transfield.

In light of all this, we ask the Board: what will you do? We urge you to act in the interests of asylum seekers. As part of this we request the Biennale withdraw from the current sponsorship arrangements with Transfield and seek to develop new ones. This will set an important precedent for Australian and international arts institutions, compelling them to exercise a greater degree of ethical awareness and transparency regarding their funding sources. We are asking you, respectfully, to respond with urgency.

Our interests as artists don’t merely concern our individual moral positions. We are concerned too with the ways cultural institutions deal with urgent social responsibilities. We expect the Biennale to acknowledge the voice of its audience and the artist community that is calling on the institution to act powerfully and immediately for justice by cutting its ties with Transfield.

We believe that artists and art-workers can—and should—create an environment that empowers individuals and groups to act on conscience, opening up other pathways to develop more sustainable, and in turn sustaining, forms of cultural production.

We want to extend this discussion to a range of people and organisations, in order to bring to light the various forces shaping our current situation, and to work towards imagining other possibilities into being. In our current political circumstances we believe this to be one of the most crucial challenges that we are compelled to engage with, and we invite you into this process of engagement.

We look forward to hearing your response and given the urgency of this issue, hope that we can receive it by the end of this week.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Gabrielle de Vietri, Bianca Hester, Charlie Sofo, Nathan Gray, Deborah Kelly, Matt Hinkley, Benjamin Armstrong, Libia Castro, Ólafur Ólafsson, Sasha Huber, Sonia Leber, David Chesworth, Daniel McKewen, Angelica Mesiti, Ahmet Öğüt, Meriç Algün Ringborg, Joseph Griffiths, Sol Archer, Tamas Kaszas, Krisztina Erdei, Nathan Coley, Corin Sworn, Ross Manning, Martin Boyce, Callum Morton, Emily Roysdon, Søren Thilo Funder, Mikhail Karikis, Mikala Dwyer, Rosa Barba, Sara van der Heide, Henna-Riikka Halonen, Ane Hjort Guttu, Hadley+Maxwell, Shannon Te Ao, Yael Bartana, Emily Wardill, Agnieszka Polska, Bodil Furu, Eglė Budvytytė, Eva Rothschild, Annette Stav Johanssen, Synnøve G. Wetten, Tori Wrånes, Siri Hermansen, James Angus

NOTES

1. Please note that in this document we use the name Transfield to refer to three branches of the Transfield brand: Transfield Holdings, Services and Foundation. Please refer to our information sheet for our understanding of how these are linked.

Ruth Skilbeck 5.3.2014

 Four More Artists Open Letter of 5 March announcing withdrawal,  posted for the first time on Biennale Artists Working Group blog.