His position had become untenable. Accused of complacency towards anti-Semitism, the boss of Documenta in Kassel (Germany), Sabine Schormann, was dismissed. In a press release published on Saturday July 16, the supervisory board of this major five-year contemporary art event announced that it had reached an agreement with its general manager to terminate her contract, adding that a temporary management would ensure the interim. until a successor is designated.
At the heart of the controversy: a fresco by the Indonesian collective Taring Padi, entitled People’s Justice. Twenty meters long, it was to be a centerpiece of the fifteenth edition of Documenta, which opened on June 18 and is due to end on September 25. However, it was only shown for two days, the Israeli embassy in Germany and several Jewish associations having immediately demanded – and obtained – its removal. The reason: the presence, among the characters depicted, of a soldier with the head of a pig wearing a Star of David and a helmet of the Mossad (Israeli secret services), as well as that of a man ticking all the boxes of an anti-Semitic caricature, from the sharp teeth to the pointy ears, to the big cigar on the lips.
A “fair and necessary” departure
In its press release on Saturday, Documenta’s supervisory board said “deeply appalled” by the fact that a work containing such “clearly anti-Semitic motives” was considered worthy of display. He also considered that “A lot of trust has been lost because of the way the crisis has been handled.”
After the removal of the controversial fresco, Sabine Schormann presented her “solemn apologies”ensuring “not having identified anti-Semitic images during installation” of this work. However, she struggled to make herself heard. Already at the beginning of the year, the Documenta team was criticized for having invited the Palestinian collective The Question of Funding, accused of supporting the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement, which advocates a boycott of Israel. in solidarity with the occupied Palestinian territories. Two years after the Bundestag labeled BDS as “anti-Semite”some had seen in this invitation a form of provocation.
During the weekend, the reactions were linked to greet the sidelining of Sabine Schormann. A departure “just and necessary”declared in particular the Federal Minister of Culture, Claudia Roth, to the daily Frankfurter Rundschau.
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