There are still five weeks left until the end of the Documenta. But there is no end in sight for the internationally most important exhibition of contemporary art to shake off its anti-Semitic image. There was another earthquake in Kassel last week. Again, an incriminated picture was discovered and again not the closure, but a stop in production was demanded.
One could coquettishly call it the documenta rite if it weren’t tragically linked to its further dismantling and anti-Semitism in our society, not just in the works on display, a far too serious topic. Julia Alfandari from the Anne Frank educational institution, which is doing educational work at the Documenta with an information stand, also expressed her shock this week at how naturally “crude anti-Semitic conspiracy theories” were expressed by educated citizens. Even in the Documenta audience there was little knowledge about anti-Semitism.
But that’s not all. The British Documenta participant Hamja Ahsan has become involved as a new variant of the dispute with a Facebook post in which he describes Chancellor Scholz as a “fascist pig”. There had already been discussions about his light boxes with a rooster installed on the Documenta grounds. The fictional takeaway ad is intended to satirically draw attention to the increasing Islamophobia in England. According to his most recent statement, the Briton, who was born in Bangladesh, is no longer allowed to appear publicly at the Documenta, but his works are still remembered.
Of course, this decision by the artistic direction was also sharply criticized. Whatever the attitude of the Indonesian artist collective Ruangrupa to the finds that pop up almost every week and the accusations that result from them, it is always wrong – at least this finding should be taken for granted.
The most recent case shows how little Ruangrupa can succeed in downgrading the documenta to an art exhibition and escaping the politicization trap. For example, the chairman of the Young Forum of the German-Israeli Society, Constantin Ganss, discovered another anti-Semitic depiction in another work by Taring Padi in the East indoor pool. To be more precise: on the large-format picture “All Mining is Dangerous” from 2000, created together with the US collective Just Seed from Portland, which shows, among other things, four figures dividing bags of money among themselves. Ganss identified the subsequently taped over headgear of a figure as a kippa and was outraged by this measure.
If it had been. According to a statement by Ruangrupa, it is instead a character from the Wayang puppet theater, which is popular in Indonesia. She wears the typical Indonesian headgear “Kopiah”, also called “Songkok” or “Peci”, which, unlike the kippa, reaches to the ears. To avoid confusion, as a preventive measure against possible misinterpretations, Taring Padi taped over the headgear of the figure shortly after the scandal surrounding the banner she hung on Friedrichsplatz, which they said was up to them as artists.
