Outside a public library in Santa Ana, California, stood a bronze sculpture of a man with a book tucked beneath one arm and a dove lifting off from the other. Palestinian-American poet, scholar, and civil rights leader Alex Odeh was assassinated in 1985; nine years later, Algerian-American artist Khalil Bendib created the work in his memory.
The statue was splashed with red paint in 1996 and again the following year. Then, in 2020, the dove — a symbol of peace — was stolen, though it was eventually recovered.
Now, artist Jon Rubin is sending the dove back into the world, launching it as a living, participatory artwork designed to draw renewed attention to Odeh’s life and legacy, the ongoing history of anti-Arab violence, and efforts to end occupation and genocide in Palestine — a quiet prayer for peace.
This past weekend, it traveled to Los Angeles for an evening of music, poetry, and food. From there, it is scheduled to head to the Bay Area, Pittsburgh, and, hopefully, Jifna, Odeh’s hometown, before returning home to roost.
It is a timely reminder that art is meant to be shared in community — as Patrick Guetta, the artist featured in this week’s edition of A View From the Easel, says, “One of my favorite museums is the street.” Also today, inside the cheerfully sinister worlds of Trevor Winkfield, and Zendaya wearing 3,000-year-old Iranian artifacts to a movie premiere points to bigger problems than out-of-touch celebrities.
—Lisa Yin Zhang, associate editor
CORRECTION: Our Daily Newsletter from Friday, July 17, mistakenly stated that three antiquities the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office returned to Mexico were previously held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when in fact only one of them was. We regret the error.
