Nicole Eisenman Open Up About Supporting Gaza: ‘Artists Are Hesitant to Grapple With the Destruction’

Earlier this year, the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired The Auction (2024–25), a painting by artist Nicole Eisenman. Like much of Eisenman’s oeuvre, it’s a fanciful work of figuration, featuring a feverish bidding war overseen by a fruit-headed, black-robed judge. While Eisenman’s works are funny at first glance, a nuanced narrative, interweaving the personal and political, can usually be teased out of them. That was not the case with The Auction, which didn&rsqu