Renewed allegations of anti-Semitism: Documenta expert committee sees its work hindered

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Detail from the Taring Padi painting All Mining is Dangerous

Photo: Taring Padi

The chair of the Documenta expert committee, Nicole Deitelhoff, has criticized the management of the world art exhibition in Kassel for their handling of the renewed allegations of anti-Semitism.

"The committee was neither informed about the pasting over nor about the removal of works from the exhibition if they were removed on purpose," Deitelhoff told the "Welt am Sonntag".

Both are completely inappropriate with a view to dealing with the problem of anti-Semitism in these works and massively hinder the work of the committee.

Allegations of anti-Semitism against the Documenta Fifteen have been circulating since the beginning of the year.

Shortly after the opening of the exhibition, a banner with anti-Jewish motifs by the Indonesian art collective Taring Padi was taken down.

Several works were later criticized as anti-Semitic, including depictions in a brochure, which have since been removed from the exhibition.

Recently there was outrage about another work by Taring Padi.

The national chairman of the Young Forum of the German-Israeli Society, Constantin Ganß, recognized anti-Semitic stereotypes in the picture “All Mining is Dangerous”: four people dividing large amounts of money in the form of money bags among themselves – one with a long nose and malicious grin pictured.

Their headgear was covered with a piece of black tape, but older photos of the work showed it resembled a kippah.

The Documenta curators' collective reacted quickly to the new accusation, pointing out that it was a so-called hajj hat worn by Muslim men in Indonesia.

In order to prevent confusion, the artists would have carried out the revision themselves with adhesive tape.

In view of the allegations of anti-Semitism, the documenta's shareholders, the city of Kassel and the state of Hesse, appointed an expert committee of seven scientists to provide scientific support for the exhibition in the coming months.

Its chairwoman Deitelhoff is head of the Leibniz Institute Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research.

feb/dpa