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Documenta and Claudia Roth in the culture committee: The others are to blame

2022-07-06T18:11:42.770Z


The culture committee of the Bundestag invited today to a technical discussion - or did he invite? It was about the Documenta and the Central Council of Jews made clear statements. Also to Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth.


Enlarge image

Minister of State for Culture and Media Claudia Roth

Photo: Kay Nietfeld / dpa

Not all those invited appeared in Berlin.

The general director of the documenta called in sick, she had a high fever, the mayor of Kassel signed off from meetings that he considered more urgent.

They only made it easier for those present to blame them.

After all, Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth and her Green Party colleague Angela Dorn, who is Minister of Art in Hesse and is a member of the Supervisory Board of Documenta as deputy chairwoman, came.

However, neither of them bear any responsibility whatsoever for the Documenta debacle – at least that is how they portrayed it.

At best, they should have been less trusting, more unyielding.

Roth spoke of a "breach of word" to her.

And he was one of the addressees of her overconfidence: Ade Darmawan.

He also came, he is one of the members of the – now controversial – Indonesian artists' collective Ruangrupa, which was commissioned to direct the Documenta.

Darmawan once again apologized for the "pain and fear" caused by the large-scale image "People's Justice" that the problem had not been recognized and that the work was also hung late because the brittle material of the banner was still being repaired .

At the same time he tried to explain the political and social circumstances under which the picture was taken 20 years ago in Indonesia by the group Taring Padi, at that time the violent regime was supported by Western secret services.

Much earlier, European colonizers imported anti-Semitic ideas and images and applied them to the Chinese minority, adapted them to a different cultural context, and then continued this transmission.

It was all frightening and shameful, Darmawan said, and yet it sounded like a kind of silent picture mail, which nobody can do anything about.

A lot is still not clear, even after this afternoon.

And that was perhaps least of all the fault of the Ruangrupa artist.

Demand for the resignation of the Documenta general director

It is thanks to Daniel Botmann that the conversation took an enlightening, but unfortunately also frightening turn.

He is the managing director of the Central Council of Jews and was present at various crisis talks with Claudia Roth - from whom, as he said today before the culture committee, he did not feel heard and not taken seriously.

In the end, a picture hung in Kassel that was "Jewish hatred in its purest form," and it wasn't even the only work with anti-Semitic content.

Botmann was one of those who called for the resignation of Documenta general director Sabine Schormann that afternoon, and yet he made it clear that there was hardly any need to discuss the Kassel show anymore, but rather the entire German cultural scene.

Because he thinks he has a problem or he is the problem.

According to Botmann, German culture repeatedly boycotts Jewish artists, tends to be anti-Israeli, and in some places anti-Semitic, and even relativizes the Holocaust.

This also applies to well-known institutions, Botmann said that in Jewish circles, when mentioning the Institute for Research on Antisemitism, the suffix "research" is sometimes omitted.

He also repeatedly mentioned the anti-Israel boycott movement BDS, which was condemned by the German Bundestag in 2019 - but which has supporters in the German cultural scene.

"If BDS activists have influence in the cultural sector, then they act anti-Semitically there," said Botmann.

And he also warned against the GG 5.3 cosmopolitan initiative.

It was founded at the end of 2020 by powerful German cultural managers who thought that the BDS should not be badmouthed and that criticism of Israel should also be given space.

The general director of the state Humboldt Forum joined the group, as did the artistic director of the Federal Cultural Foundation.

more on the subject

  • Anti-Semitism: We are the people with a Nazi background A comment by Susanne Beyer, author at SPIEGEL's capital city office

  • Director General of the Documenta on the demand for resignation: »I take my job seriously« An interview by Ulrike Knöfel

  • Olaf Scholz and the Documenta: A scandal in this governmentA commentary by Ulrike Knöfel

  • After the anti-Semitism scandal: Claudia Roth calls for more government influence on the documenta by Ulrike Knöfel

  • Speech by the Federal President at the Documenta: Rarely so unsuccessfulBy Ulrike Knöfel

  • Claudia Roth about her new role: »I will not raise or lower my thumb as a cultural police officer« An interview by Ulrike Knöfel and Susanne Beyer

What was not specifically mentioned today, but was certainly taken into account by many viewers (of the session broadcast by Parliament television): Claudia Roth and several other Greens in 2019 also expressly campaigned for the BDS movement, despite the anti-Semitic patterns and methods she recognized, not entirely to be condemned in such a general way.

Only recently, in an interview with SPIEGEL, did she sound more restrictive. Although she did not support the Bundestag resolution against BDS at the time, she said: »But that in no way means that I have any sympathy for the BDS movement myself or would support it.« Her most important employee Andreas Görgen, who sat next to her today in the culture committee, played his part in the success of the Cosmopolitan initiative in 2020.

At least the protagonists thanked him at the time for his professional advice and his contributions to the discussion.

Botmann obviously sees it this way: it is unacceptable that nobody is taking responsibility for this documenta, "that Ms. Schormann is still in office is an impertinence", in his opinion this exhibition series "must be rethought".

But he also sees "wrong appointments" elsewhere in Germany, wherever the BDS ideology is promoted.

He recommended »taking a closer look at the House of World Cultures«.

The session will continue tomorrow, with a debate in the Bundestag.

Perhaps Roth will again demand more influence on the Documenta.

And that despite the fact that she recently emphasized that she didn't want to be a cultural police officer.

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2022-07-06

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