By: Alex Yang
After almost a month of crisis in the world of art, Sabine Schormman, the director of the famous contemporary art exhibition Documenta, resigned only 28 days into the 100-day event on Saturday. The expedition is held every 5 years in Kassel, Germany, and the large issue has led many people to lose trust in the event.
The crisis began after an artwork containing antisemitic imagery was installed. It was shortly covered up, then removed from the exhibition. The piece was a huge mural that contained a Jewish caricature, and it led to a “loss of trust” in the event. The board in charge of the event has stated that they “consider it essential that everything is done to regain that trust.”
Documenta is considered one of the world’s most important art events, rivaled only by the Biennale in Venice, Italy. This year’s Documenta was organized by the Ruangrupa, an Indonesian art collective, and involved over 1000 artists who built events ranging from a nightclub to a sauna for people to discuss social and political issues, along with looking at art.
But even despite such praise, Documenta was full of controversy before it even opened. In January, a protest group called Alliance Against Antisemitism Kassel accused the Ruangrupa and other artists of supporting a movement against Israel, a movement that Germany declared antisemitic back in 2019 for “questioning Israel’s existence”
The accusations appeared first on a blog, and then they were picked up by newspapers and politicians in Germany. And these problems went even further when an artwork called “People’s Justice” was installed on Kassel’s main square.
At a whopping 60 feet, “People’s Justice” was a political banner that features cartoon-like depictions of activists. Among the figures in the banner, there is one with a head resembling a Jewish caricature wearing a hat with the symbol of the Nazi SS division, along with soldiers from multiple intelligence agencies. Claudia Roth, Germany’s culture minister, called the caricature “antisemitic imagery.”
Ms. Schormman tried to distance herself from the controversy by stating that she was not responsible for what art was hung in the exhibition. The exhibition was the be inspected, but this plan was stopped when the director of the Anne Frank Education Center in Frankfurt, Meron Mendel, resigned from his role to assist in the inspection.
Many people have been questioning their trust in Documenta and how such a prestigious event could have this issue, and the investigation is definitely not over. We could even see a delay or cancelation of Documenta in fear of such issue occurring again.
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