This is the umpteenth – and ultimate? – episode of a soap opera that has been undermining Documenta for months. The director of the prestigious German contemporary art meeting in Kassel will leave her post due to a controversy over content deemed anti-Semitic.
Documenta’s Supervisory Board expressed “his deep dismay that clearly anti-Semitic motives could be observed” at the opening of the world’s largest contemporary art fair in June, according to a press release.
As a result, an agreement has been reached with the director, Sabine Schormann, to “terminate (his) contract”. An interim director must be appointed.
The work that caused a scandal came from the Indonesian collective Taring Padi, including a fresco entitled «People’s Justice» showed a soldier with a pig’s head, a Star of David and the inscription «Mossad» on his helmet.
We also see a man with sharp teeth and pointed ears, who wears a bowler hat on which is inscribed “SS”, side curls and a hooked nose, with a large cigar in his mouth, evoking the anti-Semitic caricatures of the 1930s.
This work was quickly covered up after requests for removal from the Israeli Embassy and representatives of the Jews of Germany. The fresco had already been shown at the South Australia Art Festival in Adelaide in 2002, but also in Jakarta and China.
“It is essential to quickly clarify this incident” and from “learn lessons”, in order to avoid anti-Semitic excesses in the cultural and artistic world, continues the press release from Documenta on Saturday. “A lot of trust has unfortunately been lost. to the detriment of exposure, underlines the text.
The fresco cast opprobrium on this world-class exhibition taking place every five years and of which this is the fifteenth edition. Especially since, even before its inauguration, the most anticipated contemporary art event in Germany had been energized by the discovery of hateful graffiti accentuating the turmoil in which the management found itself, targeted by accusations of anti-Semitism. impossible to stop.
It all started, in January 2022, with a blog accusing certain members of the artistic committee of “promote hatred of Israel”: the blog reproached these members for having signed an open letter in December 2020 concerning the BDS movement (Boycott, divestment, sanctions) in Germany – a movement which calls for a political, economic and cultural boycott of the Jewish state.