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The exhibition was initiated a few weeks earlier when Chaddad was facing prison for refusing to serve in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) reserves. The artworks were collected in order to curate a private exhibition in Chaddad’s prison cell, as a means of turning his detention into an act of resistance, but these plans had to change when Chaddad’s sentence was dismissed a few hours before his imprisonment. In order to make use of the numerous artworks collected, Chaddad and Hunter brought the art to two of the refusers, Bahat and Tzameret, who welcomed the works into their cells. On February 18, 2004, once the artworks were within prison walls, the exhibition opening began on a hill overlooking the prison, with food, drinks, and music, but obviously, without the actual art.

The public trial and the sentence of the five refusers set in motion a surprising number of artistic reactions. (1) “One Pink Rose” belongs, in part, to this reactive group as a clear homage to the refusers and their cause. But the exhibition’s originality lies in its attempt to make a broader statement about the public’s limited range of accepted identities, standpoints, and norms. In this article, I will draw on the trial, the refusers, and the “One Pink Rose” exhibition to outline how this particular art project engaged in the political, and how the refusal to display it affected the significance and success of the exhibition. I will take this opportunity to expose “One Pink Rose” to a broader audience, for it has remained practically unknown and escaped the media’s attention despite it being a major political, social, and artistic statement involving numerous artists. The strong critical potential of “One Pink Rose” lies in the exhibition’s versatile nature, its unstable interrelations, and its multiple targets of critique, which offer an alternative configuration of the social norms that shape identity politics in Israel today.