“Something happened that shouldn’t have happened”
Sharp criticism of anti-Semitic motifs at Documenta
The Documenta art exhibition in Kassel drew sharp criticism for some of its motifs. According to the Central Council of Jews in Germany, anti-Semitic motifs were clearly used on one of the works by the Indonesian art collective Taring Padi.
In Kassel, the anti-Semitic propaganda image of an Indonesian activist collective has to be removed. The Lord Mayor Christian Geselle and the Documenta Managing Director Sabine Schormann are responsible for this. How both are now trying to save their skins.
Dhe anti-Semitic banner installation by the Indonesian activist collective Taring Padi at the Documenta in Kassel is being removed. Kassel’s Lord Mayor and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Documenta Christian Geselle (SPD) made the decision on Tuesday, June 21, 2022. The nine by twelve meter picture entitled “People’s Justice” stood a few days in front of the venerable Museum Fridericianum in Kassel – in other words, at the center of the international attention that the North Hessian provincial town experiences every five years.
Christian Geselle and Sabine Schormann (here 2018)
Source: Swen Pförtner/picture alliance/dpa
The picture with anti-Semitic iconography was not erected there until June 17, shortly after most journalists had left, but just in time for the grand opening celebrations with a state visit by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth.
A detail of the Taring Padi image shows a man in a suit and tie with sharp ruffled teeth protruding from his mouth. There are signs of side curls under his hat, on which the SS rune is emblazoned. Another detail shows a uniformed person with the Star of David on the neckerchief, the name of the Israeli secret service Mossad on the helmet and the nose of a pig – an animal that is considered unclean by devout Jews.
The director of the Anne Frank educational center in Frankfurt, Meron Mendel, was one of the first to ask those responsible for the Documenta to remove the picture because it had clearly anti-Semitic motifs. “This is a clear border crossing,” said Mendel. “These images leave absolutely no room for interpretation. This is clear anti-Semitic agitation.”
In a documenta statement, Taring Padi said: “Our work does not contain content that aims to portray any population group in a negative way.” This defense can only be called sneering.
Even more scandalous than this infantile kitschy and racist-contemptuous agitprop is the handling of the case by those responsible for Documenta, which ultimately can even threaten the continued existence of the art festival. After failing in the run-up, they now fail in damage control. Documenta Director General Sabine Schormann fanned the criticism even further: According to Schormann, the management was “not an authority that could “have the artistic exhibits presented in advance for examination”.
A detail of the controversial large-scale painting by the Indonesian artist collective Taring Padi
Source: dpa
Christian Geselle recognized an “anti-Semitic violation that cannot be dismissed out of hand”, who in the past few weeks and months has ironed out any criticism of the management of the event and its participants with reference to artistic freedom. However, Geselle warned against placing the Documenta under general suspicion. During the preview days for the press, “no anti-Semitic works of art could be identified beforehand” – knowing full well that Taring Padi’s work had only been installed after the opening.
Now the chairman of the supervisory board and mayor has arranged for the immediate removal. He was “angry, disappointed” and felt “ashamed” and the city of Kassel, according to Christian Geselle. “Something happened that shouldn’t have happened.” And while the first calls for Sabine Schormann’s resignation are being heard, Geselle also tries to save his head by shifting the blame onto the Ruangrupa curatorial collective: “Despite their confessions, the artistic direction is documenta fifteen has not fulfilled its responsibility to ensure that there is no room for anti-Semitism, racism or any kind of discrimination.” Geselle will not be able to evade responsibility that easily.
In Kassel, the scope of the documenta’s rapid decline seems to be recognized – albeit far too slowly. In the meantime, the wind has turned in the Hessian state capital of Wiesbaden. “The damage that has already occurred cannot be put into perspective,” said Hesse’s Minister of Art Angela Dorn (Greens) on Tuesday. “On the contrary, we have to work through how it was possible for such a visual language to be shown publicly at the Documenta.” According to Dorn, other works must also be examined more closely “in the sense of responsible curating”. You have to have a conversation about “why these pictures are met with resistance and rejection and from which worldview they were created.”
Dorn receives support from Christoph Heubner, the Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, who also still has hope for a discursive solution. It is time “to hear the artists from which world view these pictures were created and to explain publicly on the part of the Documenta why these pictures are met with resistance and rejection here.”
On the other hand, Lea Rosh from the support group “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe” is less merciful: “Those responsible must ensure that it is worked out how such a picture could have been hung in the first place,” said the chairwoman of the support group Lea Rosh on Tuesday. Sabine Schormann had always emphasized that she would not tolerate anti-Semitism at the Documenta. On Sunday evening she explained in an ARD interview that she had seen neither BDS influence on this documenta nor anti-Semitic positions. She has obviously violated her duty of care: Now the managing director of the Documenta can only draw personal conclusions from the failure to meet her own premises.