Enlarge image
Claudia Roth: »It is right and necessary that the workup can now take place«
Photo:
ANNEGRET HILSE / REUTERS
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth welcomed the decision of the supervisory board to part with Sabine Schormann as general director of documenta fifteen.
The Greens politician told the “Frankfurter Rundschau” on Saturday: “It is right and necessary that the processing of how anti-Semitic imagery could have been exhibited and the necessary consequences for the art exhibition can now be drawn.”
Schormann resigned after the anti-Semitism scandal at the Documenta in Kassel.
The supervisory board and shareholders agreed with her to terminate the service contract at short notice, as the control committee announced on Saturday.
A work with anti-Semitic imagery was dismantled after a wave of outrage just days after the start of the world art exhibition.
Months earlier there had been allegations of anti-Semitism against the curating artist collective Ruangrupa from Indonesia.
The supervisory board clearly distanced itself from the work: "The presentation of the banner 'People's Justice' by the artist collective Taring Padi, with its anti-Semitic imagery, was a clear transgression, and the documenta was thereby inflicted with considerable damage." The incident must be clarified promptly.
Roth wants to support the reorganization
Claudia Roth approves of the fact that the two shareholders – the city of Kassel and the state of Hesse – also want to have structures and responsibilities reviewed at the Documenta, as she told the “Frankfurter Rundschau”.
"These are the first important steps towards a necessary realignment of this important fixed point for contemporary art worldwide." As Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the German Federal Cultural Foundation and Minister of State for Culture, she is ready to "support this process," said Roth, about her own role in the scandal was also debated.
The City of Kassel and the State of Hesse are represented on the Documenta Supervisory Board.
At the top are Lord Mayor Christian Geselle (SPD) as Chairman of the Supervisory Board and Art Minister Angela Dorn (Greens) as his deputy.
The Supervisory Board currently consists of ten people.
The federal government is not represented.
The federal government's anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, also commented on Sabine Schormann's resignation on Saturday.
After Schormann's "devastating handling of the allegations of anti-Semitism" and the "complete loss of credibility," the step was overdue, Klein told "Bild am Sonntag".
»Now it is a matter of drawing the necessary structural conclusions for the future.
Anti-Semitism must not be accepted in any form in cultural life, regardless of where the cultural workers come from.«
mbo/dpa