2024-05-08 13:53:33
Opinion anti-Semitism
This decision does not bode well for Documenta 2027
Status: 08.05.2024 | Reading time: 4 minutes
Pig with Star of David: an image by the Taring Padi collective
Quelle: picture alliance/dpa
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Caricatures of Jews, terrorist propaganda, Israelis as Nazis: there should never be such “art” at Documenta again. Many expensive experts have thought about how to prevent something like this. Now it comes out: The proposals are not being implemented in one crucial point.
There was great anger among the German public and politicians about the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel works at the last Documenta. The process was complex and lengthy and has only now really been completed. After a committee of experts had already taken office, the consulting company METRUM made recommendations for Documenta reform in December 2023, which were then discussed publicly and were intended to serve as a basis for decision-making by the Documenta supervisory board.
This decision has now been made. There will be a Code of Conduct for the sixteenth Documenta starting in 2027, i.e. an internal guideline for the documenta and Museum Fridericianum gGmbH as the sponsoring company of the art show. But, and this is crucial, they are not responsible for the content of the exhibition. These are the artistic directors, who in turn are chosen by a jury. And there changes – nothing.
“The artistic direction,” the Documenta supervisory board announced on Tuesday evening, “is not required to develop its own code of conduct.”
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You rely on dialogue instead of rules. Once the new artistic direction has been determined (a process that has already been damaged by the resignation of the first search committee), then this new management should publicly explain “what understanding it has of respect for human dignity and how its preservation is ensured in the exhibition it is curating shall be”. Who selects the art and who, on the other hand, creates the conditions for it, acquires money and space, and hires staff should be separated even more clearly than before.
The main issue
The main problem with Documenta 15 was not that the management had improperly interfered with the artistic work of the Ruangrupa collective. The central problem was the refusal of its artistic and executive management to recognize the problem of Israel-related anti-Semitism at the world’s largest art show as such. A narrow view of the Middle East conflict, probably fueled by historical ignorance, a simplistic reading of postcolonial theories and social dynamics of outrage, led to the derailments of the show curated by the Ruangrupa collective from Indonesia.
At the same time, the Documenta was a show where you could see a lot of art that had nothing at all to do with the Middle East conflict. But that didn’t make the fangs of the Jewish caricatures in Taring Padi, the Palestinian terror propaganda films and the equation of the Israeli military and Hitler’s troops in Mohammed al-Hawajri’s pictures any less problematic.
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The internationally known artist Hito Steyerl withdrew her work from Documenta on the grounds that she did not want to support the failure to deal with the anti-Semitic content shown. The tendency to display such content without question has not decreased since October 7, 2023, quite the opposite. The part of the art world from which the Documenta management will probably be recruited in 2027 is somewhat united in the conviction that Israel is the fundamental colonial evil in the Middle East. The fronts have become even more hardened due to the Gaza war; there is simply no escaping the issue.
The reform of Documenta, for which Kassel, Hesse and the federal government are jointly responsible as stakeholders, can therefore be described as half-hearted. The Supervisory Board’s decision appears to be an attempt to prophylactically distance itself from possible controversies by erecting a firewall of committees and rules towards the trustees. Afterwards, you can claim that you followed the consulting firm’s recommendations. The fact that this is not implemented in such a crucial point – the responsibility of the curators cast in a code of conduct – speaks volumes.
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One can argue about which Code of Conduct rules make sense and which would be excessive, but with such a guide in hand, every curator would have known what he was getting into in Kassel. Now he or she won’t know until the work begins.
Conversely, the Documenta management will only know exactly what to expect once preparations are underway. Overall, this is a risk that such a crisis-ridden institution cannot actually take. She does it anyway.
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