documenta general director resigns | free press

by time news

An anti-Semitic work of art was shown at the art exhibition. The processing went slowly. Now the supervisory board and shareholders are taking action.

Kassel.

The anti-Semitism scandal at the documenta has consequences: the general director of the exhibition, Sabine Schormann, resigns from her position. The exhibition is to be fundamentally reformed. External experts should help, as the supervisory board and shareholders’ meeting decided at the weekend.

Even before documenta fifteen began, allegations of anti-Semitism had been raised against the Indonesian artist collective Ruangrupa, which curated the 100-day exhibition. Shortly after the opening of the show, which is considered the most important exhibition for contemporary art alongside the Venice Biennale, a work with anti-Semitic imagery was discovered: the banner “People’s Justice” by the Indonesian art collective Taring Padi was first covered and then taken down.

Supervisory Board on “clear border crossing”

The supervisory board expressed “deep dismay” about the events on Saturday: The work contained “clearly anti-Semitic motifs”. The presentation of the banner on the opening weekend “was a clear crossing of borders” and the documenta was “considerably damaged”. “In the opinion of the supervisory board, it is essential to clarify this incident promptly, to draw conclusions based on scientific findings for dealing with anti-Semitic processes in the cultural and art context, and to avert further damage to the documenta.” A lot of trust was lost. Now you have to win this back.

“Scientific support” should now also help. The team will include scholars specializing in anti-Semitism, postcolonialism and the arts. On the one hand, it should look at the “processes, structures and receptions” of documenta fifteen and make recommendations for the processing. On the other hand, they should also see whether other anti-Semitic elements can be seen at the documenta.

Minister of State for Culture welcomes the separation

“The supervisory board considers a cooperation between the scientific support and the artistic direction to be expedient,” the statement said. Schormann had commented on this proposal in writing last week. Among artists and curators there is “a clear defensive attitude towards interventions in art”. They “feared censorship and therefore rejected an external panel of experts,” Schormann wrote.

Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth welcomed the separation from Schormann. The Greens politician told the “Frankfurter Rundschau” on Saturday: “It is right and necessary that we can now work through how anti-Semitic imagery could have been exhibited and draw the necessary conclusions for the art exhibition.” Roth declared himself willing to support the process of re-establishing “this important fixture for contemporary art worldwide”.

The city of Kassel and the state of Hesse are represented on the documenta supervisory board. At the top are Lord Mayor Christian Geselle (SPD) as Chairman of the Supervisory Board and Art Minister Angela Dorn (Greens) as his deputy. The Supervisory Board currently consists of ten people. The federal government is not represented.

In the past few weeks, calls for Schormann’s resignation have become louder and louder. The 60-year-old was accused, among other things, of inaction in the processing of the scandal. Most recently, the head of the Anne Frank educational institution, Meron Mendel, withdrew as a documenta advisor in protest. Hito Steyerl, one of the most important international artists of documenta fifteen, withdrew her works in protest.

Permanent changes planned

The documenta reported on Saturday that an amicable agreement had been reached on the termination of the managing director’s service contract. Schormann, a cultural manager born in Bad Homburg, has held the post since 2018. The year before, the documenta hit the headlines in 2017 due to a deficit of millions in the 14th edition. The managing director at the time, Annette Kulenkampf, then resigned from her position. For a transitional period, the music manager Wolfgang Orthmayr initially managed the business. An interim solution is now to be found again.

According to the current decisions, the documenta will also change permanently after the scandal. The shareholders’ meeting decided to “carry out an organizational study of the documenta and Museum Fridericianum gGmbH, which will examine both the structures, including competencies and responsibilities, and the processes”.

“The city of Kassel and the state of Hesse are united by the common goal of working through the misconduct on the subject of anti-Semitism and structural deficits and doing everything possible to ensure that the documenta will continue to have a unique position as an exhibition for contemporary art in the future.” You work together with everyone involved to “protect the documenta in Kassel”. (dpa)

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