"Lacoste’s prejudice and censorship puts a major dent in the idea of corporate involvement in the arts."

December 20, 2011 2:37 PM

Larissa Sansour was among the eight artists shortlisted for the 2011 prize. In December 2011, Lacoste demanded that her nomination be revoked. Lacoste stated their refusal to support Sansour’s work, labelling it ‘too pro-Palestinian’.

More on the prize, Lacoste, and Sansour

posted by mikoroshi (21 comments total)

Boycott LaCoste.
posted by cell divide at 2:49 PM on December 20, 2011

On her website, I clicked on the video project Falafel Road:

"Did Israel steal the falafel from the Palestinians? This seemingly silly question is a precursor to an investigation into the intentional and systematic hijacking and eradication of Palestinian cultural history by the state of Israel."

Um, what? No thanks.
posted by xammerboy at 3:04 PM on December 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

United Colors of Benetton would never do this. They craved controversy, at least back when I read the kind of magazines they advertised in.
posted by nomisxid at 3:06 PM on December 20, 2011

Psshh. Palestine never existed in the first place!
(I am New Gingrich and I approve this post.)
posted by Threeway Handshake at 3:53 PM on December 20, 2011

I don't really see Lacoste's angle on this. Is it market-driven, i.e., there's no commercial downside to alienating Palestinians, no upside to appearing to support their cause, even indirectly?
posted by the sobsister at 4:01 PM on December 20, 2011

The links all accuse Lacoste of censorship under bylines like "Palestine Solidarity Campaign." But there is a big difference between censorship and refusing sponsorship. She already received 4000 Euros grant sponsored by Lacoste to produce photographs for the prize competition. The Musée de l’Elysée offered to exhibit her work outside of Lacoste corporate sponsorship. She is not being censored at all, and is making this into a big drama for self-promotion.

But Lacoste should make its position more clear. Judging from the other nominees, it is pretty obvious that the jury included Sansour's work for political reasons rather than artistic merit. If Lacoste doesn't want to sponsor political propaganda, that is their right, and they should say so.
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:08 PM on December 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

I don't know why the jury included her work, but I think it's pretty cool. On the other hand, I suspect that when a clothing company commissions pictures reflecting “la joie de vivre” they want happy kids frolicking in the surf, not a dystopic vision in which

Palestinians have their state in the form of a single skyscraper: the Nation Estate. Surrounded by a concrete wall, this colossal hi-rise houses the entire Palestinian population - finally living the high life.

I rather think she was trolling Lacoste.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:53 PM on December 20, 2011

Did european Jews eat a lot of falafel? Hommous? Tahini?
posted by claudius at 4:57 PM on December 20, 2011

Did european Jews eat a lot of falafel? Hommous? Tahini?

There were Jews outside of Europe before the founding of the state of Israel. Quite a few in Palestine under the Ottoman Empire. It's not inconceivable that they ate something resembling falafel.
posted by acb at 5:04 PM on December 20, 2011

There were Jews outside of Europe before the founding of the state of Israel. Quite a few in Palestine under the Ottoman Empire. It's not inconceivable that they ate something resembling falafel.

Yeah, you know, I was thinking about that after I wrote it. It's a bit of a straw man - nobody said falafel was Ashkenazi cuisine, and saying it is Israeli food, as in "eaten in what is now Israel for hundreds of years, by the antecedents of a large number of current Israelis" of probably pretty accurate.

So, er, please disregard?
posted by claudius at 5:16 PM on December 20, 2011

Tempest in a pita. Falafelaboutit.
posted by gwint at 5:43 PM on December 20, 2011

Israelis make great falafel. However I do understand that it ticks off Palestinians that a staple of their regional cuisine has been heavily promoted by corporations and the Israeli gov't abroad as a typical "Israeli food". Not that it isn't a typical Israeli food, but to promoted a borrowed food from a state built on contested land that does everything in its power to delegitimize the land's previously dominant culture created an understandable, if silly, symbolic rage among many Palestinians I know.

It's also worth noting that the falafel road project above was done in concert with a British-Israeli artist.

For the record, my favorite falafel in Israel or Palestine is made in a small roadside shack by an Iraqi Jew who helped popularize amba sauce in Israel.
posted by cell divide at 6:05 PM on December 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

Cell divide: Why would you think that felafel isn't a Jewish food? Not only is it popular in Egypt and Lebanon as well as Israel, but Sephardi Jews are notorious for frying things in olive oil (*) and you can get Italian chickpea fritters that are very, very similar to felafel. Mind you, they're pretty similar to these Indian ones, too. Apparently lots of people like fried food, who knew.

As for pita, I was actually gobsmacked to learn that it comes from Greek, not Hebrew (via Aramaic), and certainly not Arabic. It was apparently brought to Israel by Romaniotes. So I think you might call the Palestinian complaints an attempted cultural expropriation by reactionary Arab nationalists.

(*) E.g., fried fish was introduced to England by Sephardi Jews
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:31 PM on December 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's heartening that we, as a collective, can cut out the bullshit like corporate cowardice and European bigotry and Palestinian rights and arts censorship and get right to the most important issues raised here, what do Israelis eat and where did they borrow it from.
I'm delighted this pressing concern is being addressed.
Delighted, I say!
posted by mikoroshi at 7:44 PM on December 20, 2011

Joe in Australia-- I think the point was that there is anger at the promotion of falafel as a distinctly Israeli food (in, presumably, the sense of belonging to the state of Israel somehow) when really it seems everyone in the general area eats it (and it's presumably lost to the sands of time as to what ethnic group thought of deep frying chickpeas).

Yes, I realize there's some sort of business about whether you use fava beans or not that might make Israeli falafel distinct. (I even want to say I have a vague memory of something about Ashkenazi Jews not being able to digest fava beans, but I could be way off base.)

Also, the iPad wishes to autocorrect fava to lava, which has made typing this comment annoying.
posted by hoyland at 8:15 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am failing my googlefu. Does this prize have a committee, a mission statement, who funds it, what status is the funding under (is it a chartity?) etc etc. Depending on these details this seems like a ripe case of censorship, don't know why anyone besides libertarians would think it would be ok for corporations to censor and not governments. sickening.
posted by Shit Parade at 8:41 PM on December 20, 2011

The chickpea flour-with-little-flecks-of-something-green variety of felafel probably IS "Israeli". It's a cheap urban street-food version of a more expensive and subtle fava bean flour-with-lots-of-fresh-parsley-croquette common in Lebanon and Egypt (and presumably pre-Israeli independence Palestine). I can say from experience the fava felafel was a culinary revelation, after growing up on the strong tasting chickpea version. Arab and Jewish culinary historian Claudia Roden writes about felafel at length in both The Book of Arab Food and The Book of Jewish Food; she grew up in Egypt with relatives from elsewhere in the Levant, and didn't try the chickpea felafel until well into adulthood.
posted by Dreidl at 10:10 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hoyland: you're thinking of favism, which now has a complicated name. And it seems to be common among Greeks and Jews which really resonates with the idea that pita is a Greek word. Incidentally, in Asia I saw a few shops marketing "Israeli cuisine" to backpackers. It apparently meant French fries and Vienna schnitzel.

Damn. Now I want to try fava-bean felafel.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:30 PM on December 20, 2011

The chickpea flour-with-little-flecks-of-something-green variety of felafel probably IS "Israeli".

But why "Israeli" and not "Palestinian"? If it was eaten by everyone there before the founding of Israel, why wouldn't it be Palestinian? I think that's the issue the photographer was trying to highlight.
posted by delmoi at 11:00 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Levantine", perhaps?
posted by acb at 4:05 AM on December 21, 2011

[Hi folks, please go to MetaTalk or email if you want this thread to be about something that it is not about, thank you.]
posted by jessamyn at 8:27 AM on December 21, 2011