Sabine Schormann, director general of the document, resigned on Saturday following allegations of anti-Semitism at the prestigious international contemporary art fair. in Kassel, GermanyAnd its 15th edition opened on 19th June.
According to the statement of the supervisory board of the document, both the shareholders and the managing director of the organization and the exhibition have “agreed to terminate the contract without prior notice” of Sabin Schormann, whose interim successor should now be announced soon.
Although there is controversy surrounding the accused Anti-Semitism The event that broke out before the inauguration and ultimately led to Sharman’s departure was an exhibition of a large mural created by the Indonesian artist collective Daring Badi. People’s justice (People’s Justice), among the many characters depicted in it is a pig in uniform, whose helmet reads the word “.Mossad”, the rank of the Israeli secret forces, and a figure with bloodshot eyes, a cigar at the corner of the mouth, side curls in the hair as used by orthodox Jews, and a black bowler hat on the head, the insignia of the SS Nazis.
The Israeli embassy in Germany reacted shortly after the exhibition opened, saying it was “disgusted” by the “anti-Semitic elements publicly displayed in the Document 15 exhibition” which it considered “reminiscent of the propaganda used by Goebbels and his aides”. In the Dark Ages of German History”.
Israeli diplomacy, in the same statement, maintained that “all red lines” had “not only been crossed, but destroyed,” while the German culture minister acknowledged that the mural had reached “the limits of artistic freedom.” Indonesian collective rauangrupaThe person entrusted with the charge of this document considered the “necessary consequences”.
Creators People’s justiceA revised version of the work, first exhibited in Australia in 2002, ensured the grandiose group was the target. Sukarto’s military dictatorship The trail it left behind and the anti-Semitic intentions are absent in today’s Indonesia. Apologizing for the suffering they had unwittingly caused, they were willing to cover up the mural, proposing that the covered work should be seen at once as a “monument of mourning for the impossibility of dialogue” and as a “starting point for a new dialogue”. .
The mural was indeed covered up, but the controversy did not subside, and on the night of June 21, the audience was torn between cheers and applause.
This month, the pressure is mounting on Sharman, the filmmaker, visual artist and educator Hito SteierlIn a letter published in the newspaper, he decided to withdraw from the exhibition, blaming the management of the internationally renowned document Time, unsure how to deal with accusations of anti-Semitism. Meron Mendel, director of the Anne Frank Center, who was hired as an outside consultant, told reporters at the door-knock to assess the anti-Semitism of other works on display and to promote dialogue between artists and critics. Felt “used as a cover”.
Previous accusations of anti-Semitism, such as those condemned in January, prompted the curators to participate in the Palestinian collective The Quest for Funding Documentary, whose artists support Israel’s cultural boycottIn the name of artistic freedom, it was removed by Raungurupa and Sharman, whose positions were supported by the Supervisory Board.
But the controversy surrounding the Taring Padi group’s mural and growing criticism led the ten-member body, including representatives from the Kassel municipal administration and the regional government of Hesse, to meet urgently on Friday night. According to a newspaper report Frankfurt GeneralThe debate lasted until two o’clock on Saturday morning, with Angela Dorn, the Hesse government’s art minister, being one of the most critical voices of the way Schormann has managed the controversy, and Kassel mayor Christian Kessel, a social democrat, who is still trying to defend the director general’s care, who has fallen.
German Minister of Culture, Claudia RothFrom the Os Verdes party, Sabine Schormann has already welcomed the departure and the Supervisory Board, in its statement, regrets the “significant damage” that “it is necessary to quickly clarify this incident” and “draw the necessary lessons”. The document’s notoriety resulted in its current and controversial version lasting until September 25.