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The Federal President drives up to the Documenta
Photo: Peter Hartenfelser / IMAGO
Everyone is arguing, but what will the Federal President say?
Will he admonish, will he mediate, will he take sides in his speech?
In the past few weeks, he had not been sure whether he would even appear at the opening of the documenta. This morning in Kassel, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier surprised German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier with this confession of discord.
His expression was suitably resigned.
Rarely has a Documenta prompted such a fierce, critical debate as this one, he says.
The sharpness of the controversy, the irreconcilable tone, irritated him.
Rarely has a speech been as unsuccessful as his.
What was irritating?
Its ambiguity.
For months there has been debate as to whether this documenta – the 15th edition since 1955 – will create an anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic mood.
At some point it became clear that although feisty Palestinian artists would be given a stage in Kassel in 2022, such a space was not intended for the Jewish-Israeli perspective.
And it was also clear that a number of people involved in the show signed appeals that contributed to anti-Israeli sentiment.
So Steinmeier mentions the argument and ends up with former Documenta star Joseph Beuys, of all people, who would say everything is art.
And even if Steinmeier makes it clear that, in his opinion, artistic freedom does have limits.
The mere naming of this artist in this context is enough to startle you.
Why it is like that?
Beuys has long ceased to be a synonym for a particularly freedom-loving, cosmopolitan and upright artist.
Rather, he stands for a right flip side of art.
After all, he was a man who surrounded himself with a number of old Nazis and brought them along to the Documenta as his entourage.
He even got the former Nazi functionary Werner Georg Haverbeck – his widow is the convicted Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck – to speak at the Documenta in 1977. The man spoke about the »reorientation of the development of our civilization«.
So Steinmeier comes back to Beuys' broad concept of art to say that he himself sees the limits of art and artistic freedom.
And yet the remark seems out of place.
This thoughtlessness is followed by the clear commitment to the State of Israel, the Federal President emphasized that »the recognition of Israeli statehood is the recognition of the dignity and security of the modern Jewish community«.
»No one who wants to be taken seriously as a debater in Germany can speak to Israel but remain silent about the six million murdered Jews.«
Frank Walter Steinmeier
From there he leads over to the dangerous predetermined breaking points of the documenta and the art scene in general.
It is striking that no Jewish artists from Israel are represented at this important exhibition of contemporary art.
And it bothers him when representatives of the Global South are increasingly refusing to take part in events, conferences or festivals in which Jewish Israelis take part.
Then came his big "but", which he means "in spite of everything".
"Nevertheless," said Steinmeier, one must look more closely and listen more closely to the issues that concern people in the Global South, "the long colonial history with tyranny and exploitation and the countless blind spots of coming to terms with it.
The experience of oppression and disenfranchisement.
Dealing with stolen cultural assets.
But also the dramatic consequences of climate change that are already noticeable today, with extreme weather, drought, food shortages and hunger."
That's dramatically true, but here such hints worked like rhetorical tricks.
Ultimately, it remained an awkward yes-but attitude, which meant that you didn't know where he stood, where Germany stood.
Then he said this impressive sentence, which in the dramaturgy of the speech had the effect of a mere rhetorical loop back from but to yes.
»No one who wants to be taken seriously as a debater in Germany can speak to Israel but remain silent about the six million murdered Jews.«
He doesn't take the Indonesian curators seriously
Steinmeier also explicitly criticized the management and the supervisory board of the Documenta.
The complaint was that responsibility cannot be outsourced.
He seemed to want to exempt the Indonesian curators – the Ruangrupa artist collective – from this responsibility.
But isn't that also a form of arrogance towards Ruangrupa?
Steinmeier did mention his own trip to Indonesia, from which he has just returned.
But he no longer seemed to take the Indonesian artist curators seriously.
It was almost grotesque that the Federal President finally pointed out – in a gentle style – that the Minister of State for Culture had offered her help.
Because this Minister of State, the Green Claudia Roth, has so far expressly not got the debate under control.
She was in Kassel in March to talk to the curators.
But some time was also spent that day planting an oak tree in Beuys' honor.
It's strange.
Actually, one would think that appointments related to museums and exhibitions are easy exercises for Federal Presidents. Steinmeier, however, learned earlier that things can be different.
Even at the opening of the Humboldt Forum last year, he was not allowed to spread any cheering.
His speech back then was a fitting dampener for those who did want to celebrate.
He spoiled their mood and was right about it.
Because the museum was and is too controversial because of its inventory from colonial times.
The preliminary debate about the 15th Documenta further damaged Germany's image as a cultural nation.
And Steinmeier didn't save it.
His speech became more of a confusing game because, despite his commitment to Israel, he used the knee-jerk logic of even more aggressive enemies of Israel - which says that criticism of Israel must be allowed.
He said today that "some criticism" of Israeli policies, such as settlement building, is justified.
But isn't the country's political leadership itself part of the problem in a completely different way?
In 2019, the German Bundestag passed the so-called BDS resolution.
BDS stands for the Boycott, Divestments, Sanctions campaign against Israel.
The German parliament classified their argumentation patterns and methods as anti-Semitic and decided to no longer support such events with federal funds at which this boycott is advertised.
But the cultural elite in this country saw the resolution as a harbinger of censorship, an attack on the Basic Law, and many powerful cultural managers joined forces to form the Cosmopolitan Initiative.
Among them is the artistic director of the Federal Cultural Foundation, who also pays for the documenta.
Incidentally, the working group of open-minded people thanked Andreas Görgen, a high-ranking cultural official, in writing and publicly, for his “expert advice and contributions to the discussion”.
When Steinmeier was still foreign minister, Andreas Görgen was his head of culture, and Die Zeit described him as Steinmeier's "stage builder".
Görgen is now working for Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth.
Incidentally, Roth had also distanced himself from the BDS-critical Bundestag resolution – with a personal statement that can still be read on her website.
Steinmeier did not name this campaign BDS – the big elephant in the room – in Kassel.
But it was mainly about them, about the possible proximity of the cultural scene and also a number of Documenta people to BDS.
The accusation of such closeness had sparked the whole argument in the first place.
The wound of the Shoah must remain visible, said Steinmeier today.
That was a correct sentence, there were some correct sentences, but they were invalidated by the fact that some things remained unsaid, that Steinmeier also outsourced responsibility, pushed it away to the Documenta committees and far away from Berlin.
