The 100-hour Hannah Arendt reading by the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin had to be canceled after a scandal. On Saturday, groups disrupted the reading twice and shouted slogans such as “Viva, viva Palestine” and “Against White Supremacy”. While a group of around 20 to 30 people had properly registered as “activists” in the afternoon for a reading passage of Arendt’s text “Elements and Origins of Total Domination” and left again after their time was over, the troublemakers were said to be in the evening the organizer acted much more aggressively. The artist and the readers, among whom there were Jewish participants, were insulted and the Lebanese-born director of the Hamburger Bahnhof, Sam Bardaouil, was spat on. A demonstrator shouted “Israel is not real”.
After the second group had finally withdrawn, the organizers and the artist discussed things that night. On Sunday morning, Bruguera decided to stop the performance to protect those involved. It was supposed to last until 11 p.m. on Sunday evening.
Bruguera’s performance opened a “save space” for 88 hours, writes Bardaouil to the SZ: “This will be destroyed if the art, the artist, participants and those responsible are insulted, spat on and insulted. This has nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with art do. But with respect.” And co-director Till Fellrath adds: “The possibilities of art end where it is no longer respected.” He warned against the functionalization of art for political goals: “The fact that this has been realized today should open our eyes.”
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth condemned the attack on the performance. “Hate, anti-Semitism, racism and such forms of violence” are “absolutely unacceptable”; they have “no place in the space of art or anywhere else.” According to agencies, she welcomed constitutional consequences.
Tania Bruguera first organized her performance in Cuba ten years ago. At the time she was under house arrest. Nevertheless, I managed to read the entire 100 hours in Havana.