Documenta 15: Germany Art Fair Director Resigns Amid Outrage Over Anti-Semitic Works

The CEO of Documenta, one of the world’s largest art fairs, has been forced to resign following outrage over anti-Semitic displays at its opening in Germany last month.

Documenta, which turns the sleepy German city of Kassel into the center of the art world every five years, has more than 1,500 participants and, for the first time since its launch in 1955, has been curated by a collective, Ruangrupa from Indonesia.

But on Saturday, its oversight board expressed “deep dismay” at the “blatantly anti-Semitic” content after the fair opened in June, saying an agreement had been reached with Sabine Schormann, CEO, to “end [her] contract”.

An interim director would be appointed, a statement added.

Two days after the show opened to the public, one of the works exhibited by the Indonesian art group Taring Padi was criticized for depictions that both the German government and Jewish groups say went too far.

In the offending mural is the representation of a pig with a helmet bearing the crest “Mossad”.

In the same work, a man is depicted with side locks often associated with Orthodox Jews, fangs and bloodshot eyes, and wearing a black hat bearing the insignia of the SS.

The work was covered up after Jewish leaders and the Israeli embassy in Germany expressed their “displeasure”, but the dispute cast a deep shadow over an event now in its 15th edition.

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Germany’s culture minister, Claudia Roth, backed Schormann’s departure and demanded an investigation into how the anti-Semitic work was admitted in the first place.

“The necessary conclusions must be drawn,” Roth told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.

Documenta’s supervisory board promised a full investigation, admitting that “a lot of trust has unfortunately been lost” and vowing to prevent further “anti-Semitic incidents”.

But Remko Leemhuis, director of the American Jewish Committee in Berlin, accused Documenta of not having gone far enough and of “still not understanding the problem.”

Quoted by Bild daily, Leemhuis was especially critical of the board’s reference to “accusations of anti-Semitism” as the pieces were, he said, clearly “anti-Semitic.”

The contemporary art event had been marred by controversy for months over the inclusion of a group of Palestinian artists strongly critical of the Israeli occupation.

Ruangrupa was criticized for including The Question of Funding collective about its ties to the BDS Israel boycott movement.

BDS was branded anti-Semitic by the German parliament in 2019 and banned from receiving federal funding. About half of Documenta’s budget of 42 million euros ($42.4 million) comes from public funds.

Kassel was home to a vast forced labor camp during World War II and was heavily bombed by the Allies. Documenta aimed to put Germany back on the cultural map after the Nazis’ campaign to crush the avant-garde.

The fair, which runs until September 25, now ranks alongside the Venice Biennale among the world’s leading shows of contemporary art.

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