Antisemitism at documenta 'not an accident'
July 29, 2022
After antisemitic motifs were again discovered at the documenta art exhibition in the German city of Kassel, the new interim management has also been criticized.
The show was "withdrawing into its shell" and showing no willingness to talk about antisemitism and the limits of artistic freedom, Philipp Oswalt, professor of architectural theory at the University of Kassel, told DW.
Oswalt, deputy managing director of the Kassel-based Transdisciplinary Research Center for Exhibition Studies, was involved in the founding of the documenta Institute that conducts research in the art exhibition field.
According to Oswalt, the documenta curatorial team and management under Alexander Farenholtz's interim leadership — appointed after director Sabine Schormann resigned earlier this month —continues to remain silent on accusations or to downplay them.
1988 brochure contains antisemitic stereotypes
On Wednesday, the public learned that yet another antisemitic exhibit had been discovered at the art show within a booklet displayed on tables in Kassel's Museum Fridericianum, as announced by the Research and Information Center on Antisemitism in Marburg.
In a 1988 brochure contains photos and images of a feminist archive from Algeria entitled "Presence des Femmes," among them drawings by Burhan Karkoutly, a Syrian artist, said to contain antisemitic stereotypes.
The works were created in the year of the first Palestinian uprising known as the Intifada, documenta press spokeswoman Susanne Urban told Germany's epd news agency. The Jüdische Allgemeine newspaper had first reported the finding on Wednesday.
Two of the images in question picture Israeli soldiers as dehumanized robots with bared teeth, in one image a gun barrel threatens a young man and in the other, one of the robot soldiers grabs a child by the ear. Another image has a woman kicking the groin an Israeli soldier with an oversized hooked nose in the tradition of antisemitic caricatures.
Works returned to show after removal
On Thursday, documenta announced in a press release that the the city of Kassel and the state of Hesse that preside over the event were not aware of the depictions in the booklet, even though management was in fact alerted by a visitor three weeks earlier.
Documenta organizers had removed the works but later returned them to the show.
"After investigating the matter we found the images took a clear stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but depicted no images of 'Jews as such,'" said a statement by the documenta curators.
Board members lamented the fact that the issue was "only the subject of an internal evaluation." A statement underscored the, "urgent necessity of external expertise when analyzing works for antisemitic imagery."
These events did not take place under the responsibility of the interim managing director Alexander Farenholtz.
Oswalt says he is surprised that the new management is making excuses instead of taking action, which could, for example, include discussion panels and forums on the subject, or even the production of new art before the show closes end of September.
Antisemitism in both Indonesian and German artworld
At the beginning of the documenta, the large-scale artwork "People's Justice" by the Indonesian Taring Padi artist collective came under fire for antisemitic imagery. Documenta management had it removed after fierce public criticism and the collective apologized.
"Of course, the apology for antisemitic motives has to be taken seriously, but there was no reflection on how it came about in the first place; picking up anti-Semitic iconography doesn't happen by accident," Oswalt said.
He added a German sensitivity on the subject of antisemitism can't be the justification, nor can the fact that Taring Padi is Indonesian.
"Anti-Semitism exists in the German art world just as it does in the Indonesian art world, in the global South and in the global North," Oswalt said.
Jewish community 'stunned'
It makes you wonder what stage we have reached in Germany when these images allegedly criticizing Israel can be deemed as good," Josef Schuster, president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, said on Thursday.
He added that documenta fifteen would "go down in history as an antisemitic art show."
Schuster also said it is no longer conceivable at the show will run its full course until September 25.
Meron Mendel, director of the Anne Frank Education Center, told the German News Agency that he was "stunned" by the resurgence of antisemitic motifs.
Mendel worked for a time as an adviser to documenta, but withdrew as a result of inaction on the part of the previous managing director.
Back in June, he told DW that "documenta is facing a shambles."
This article was originally written in German.