A 100-hour reading performance of an Arendt text was supposed to end in the “Hamburger Bahnhof”. But the event in Berlin was disrupted by pro-Palestinian protests and hate speech – until the artist dropped out. Now the police are investigating.
After pro-Palestinian protests, the 100-hour performance reading of a text by the Jewish journalist Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) in the Berlin art museum “Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Aktuell” was canceled on Sunday.
According to the two museum directors Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, the performance “Where Your Ideas Become Civic Actions (100 Hours Reading “The Origins of Totalitarianism”)” by the Cuban artist Tania Brugueras was disrupted twice on Saturday by a group of political activists.
The museum management has filed a complaint about insults, a police spokeswoman told rbb on Monday. Witnesses should now be interviewed and video footage viewed. Only then can one assess whether the insults have a racist, anti-Israel or anti-Semitic background.
During the course of the event, among other things, a dialogue with the audience was planned. In this part of the performance, a group of around 20 people made hate speeches in the afternoon. In the second incident in the evening, around 20 people reportedly returned and insulted one of the readers and one of the museum directors with hateful tirades.
According to Bruguera, the first part of the protest was planned. The artist’s Instagram page said that the event was “disrupted” in the second unplanned protest.
Under these circumstances, the open dialogue that was intended with this performance was no longer possible, the directors said. On Sunday morning, the artist decided to end the performance to defend herself against hate speech and all forms of violence.
“We respect and fully support the artist’s decision and categorically reject any form of hate speech and violence,” said Bardaouil and Fellrath on their Instagram channels. The step was necessary to protect the safety of the participants in the performance.
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth condemned the attack. “Hate, anti-Semitism, racism and such forms of violence are absolutely unacceptable and have no place in art or anywhere else,” said the Green politician on Sunday. “This evil anti-Semitism and racism was obviously directed directly against a Jewish cultural worker, the Cuban artist and a manager of the Hamburg train station.” Roth welcomed constitutional consequences for the authors. The President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Hermann Parzinger, spoke of unbearable anti-Semitic provocations.
Bruguera had to realize the performance at home under arrest in 2015. With the performance in Berlin she wanted to “show the power of art and activism.”
Arendt, a Jew, had to emigrate from Nazi Germany herself in 1933. She wrote her analysis of the origins and development of National Socialism shortly after the end of World War II and the liberation of Germany. A few years later she supplemented the work with the peculiarities of Stalinism.
Broadcast: rbb24 Inforadio, February 11, 2024, 7:00 p.m