It has happened again. The monstrous apparatus of the Staatsräson has swung into action to manufacture the latest scandal in Germany’s cultural scene. This time the target is none other than Nan Goldin, one of the world’s most acclaimed living artists, nominated the “Art World’s Most Influential Figure” in 2023 by ArtReview’s Power 100 list.
A Legacy Between Art and Activism
Nan Goldin is not just a photographer, and this is likely the reason why her influence extends far beyond the art world. Her work is intrinsically interconnected with her activism. She began photographing her friends from the underground scene of Boston, Berlin and New York during the 1970s and 1980s with a raw, nearly reportage-like style, capturing the vulnerability and complexity of their lives and relationships. Her subjects are friends and lovers, members of the LGBTQ+ community, whose stories she portrays as an insider, as someone who shares their joys and sorrows. To show her work, which she initially exhibited in bars and nightclubs, she developed a slideshow format using a projector, slides and music. The slideshow evolved into The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, perhaps her most famous work, which was exhibited at the Whitney Biennial in 1985 and published as a book.
Sensitive to the societal changes of her time, Goldin’s focus extended from subcultures to the AIDS crisis, drawing attention to how her subjects were consumed by the disease—a tragedy she largely attributes to government negligence in managing the emergency. In 1989 Goldin organized the group exhibition Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing at prestigious non-profit gallery Artists Space in New York, the first of its kind to focus exclusively on the AIDS epidemic, aiming to combat stigma and give voice to her subjects. In 2017 she founded Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (P.A.I.N.), a collective fighting against the Sackler family, the pharmaceutical giants responsible for producing and promoting the highly addictive OxyContin, at the epicenter of the opioid crisis. Goldin herself became addicted after being prescribed the drug in 2014. Her activism, recounted in the Oscar-nominated documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, has led several international institutions to renounce and disassociate from Sackler family funding.
Since the beginning of Israel’s assault on Gaza, defined as genocidal or potentially so by distinguished historians, international law experts and non-governmental bodies including the International Court of Justice and the UN Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices, Goldin’s activism has focused on the Middle East. As a Jewish artist, she has used her platform advocating for the Jewish movement Not in our name, was among the signatories of an open letter by cultural workers published on Artforum in condemnation of the assault on Gaza, publicly cancelled a project with the New York Times over their “complicity with Israel”, and was recently among the 200 Jewish activists arrested at a protest for Palestine at the New York Stock Exchange.
After stops in Stockholm and Amsterdam, the opening of her life retrospective This Will Not End Well on Friday 22 November at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin – where it will run until 6 April 2025 – was the epicentre of what many in German media and institutions have described as a ‘scandal’, despite the fact that the only ‘scandalous’ thing about it is the precise intention to fabricate a controversy out of it, one that bears the seal of Germany’s Staatsräson.
A Speech as Uncomfortable as Necessary
On the evening of the opening, long queues formed outside the venue, while security checks felt tighter than usual. Fredrik Liew, curator of the exhibition, and museum director Klaus Biesenbach introduced Goldin’s work and the exhibition with a speech. Biesenbach emphasised the importance of an open dialogue despite differences of opinion, immediately making clear the distance between his ideas and Goldin’s. After them, Goldin took the stage and began with four minutes of silence for the victims in Gaza, Lebanon, and Israel. “Were you uncomfortable? I hope so. We need to feel uncomfortable, to feel our bodies under siege, even for a minute.” As expected, in her 14-minute speech, she addressed the ongoing atrocities in Gaza, condemning the complicity of the USA and Germany. “Why am I talking to you? Germany? Because tongues have been tied, gagged by the government, the police, the cultural crackdown.” She referred to the over 180 cases, documented by Archive of Silence, of cultural events and artists which have been cancelled in Germany after October 7th.
“Why am I talking here? I decided to use this exhibition as a platform to amplify my position of moral outrage at the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon. I saw my show as a test case. If an artist in my position is allowed to express their political stance without being canceled, I hope I’m paving a path for other artists to speak out without being censored. I hope that’s the result. Why can’t I speak, Germany? Criticism of Israel has been conflated with antisemitism. Anti Zionism has nothing to do with antisemitism. This is a false equivalency used to maintain the occupation of Palestine and to suppress those who speak out. The word antisemitism has been weaponized. It’s lost its meaning.” “The ICC is talking about genocide. The UN is talking about genocide. Even the Pope is talking about genocide. Yet we’re not supposed to call it a genocide.” She said that what she sees in Gaza reminds her of her family’s stories about the pogroms they escaped in Russia, and that she is speaking up “because advocating for human rights cannot be antisemitic. Because I use words people here feel endangered to say. Because Israel and Germany use the Holocaust and memory culture to manufacture innocence”. She concluded by inviting people to take to the streets.
Goldin’s speech was followed by applause and chants from a group of activists. They displayed Palestinian flags, keffiyeh and a banner reading “Staatsräson is genocide”. Photos of police violence from past demonstrations in Berlin were also shown. Biesenbach attempted to respond to Goldin’s intervention, reiterating his earlier statement: “As I mentioned, I disagree with your opinion, Nan.” His words were met with vocal resistance, making his voice completely inaudible. One wonders what prompted Biesenbach to take the stage again, since he had already made clear that his ideas differ from Goldin’s. Or rather, it is clear that what unfolded was just an example of submission to the unquestionable dogma of the Staatsräson, to which one must pledge allegiance in Germany in order not to risk becoming a victim of state oppression. What is not clear is what exactly Biesenbach disagreed with, as Goldin merely listed a series of facts. To question them is to try to deny what is happening in the Occupied Territories. It is also clear that at that moment Biesenbach was not speaking in a personal capacity, but as a representative of a public institution and, by extension, of the state. His behaviour mirrors exactly that of German politics, which skilfully juggles between denying the evidence we see daily on our phones and ignoring it, trying to distort reality to support its own twisted view of the world.
Once the protesters peacefully left the building, Biesenbach went on stage to resume the speech he had failed to finish. He reiterated, once again, his disagreement with Goldin, lamenting that he had not been able to speak and emphasising the importance of freedom of expression. Ironically enough, at that very point of his address, the minions of the Staatsräson – gallery employees and security – used their bodies to cover the banner “Staatsräson is genocide” that the protesters had meanwhile unfurled, this time from outside the museum, until the guards removed it. Emblematic of freedom of expression in Germany at the moment.
Critics argue that the contestation to Biesenbach was inappropriate since he himself would have allegedly fought hard to allow the exhibition to go ahead as planned, protecting it from attempts to cancel it. It is also fair to recognise that Biesenbach himself was under great pressure for platforming Goldin. At the same time, it is hard to imagine what the repercussions of cancelling an exhibition by such an important and renowned artist as Nan Goldin would be – the choice of going ahead felt almost a forced one. And even if it had not been so, a sense of gratitude towards the non-cancellation of an exhibition due to the artist’s political position is an argument that should have no place in a country that calls itself ‘democratic’. Both this apologetic mentality and the manipulation of the narrative by institutions are dynamics that must be contested in the strongest terms. Such dynamics cannot and should not risk being normalised.
Reactions from German politicians were exactly what one would have expected. Among the ‘outraged’ were State Minister for Culture Claudia Roth, who condemned the protests: “I am appalled by the way the director of the New National Gallery was shouted down”, said the Minister from the Green party. “Such behavior is absolutely unacceptable and it is an attack on the museum and cultural work, which I condemn in the strongest possible terms”. Joe Chialo, CDU Senator for Culture of the City of Berlin, stated that he doesn’t “share Nan Goldin’s position and find her statements unacceptable. In our city of Berlin, where the Holocaust was planned and which now stands for freedom, such one-sidedness, oblivious to history, is unacceptable.” He continues saying that Israel’s right to exist is non-negotiable for Germany and it is the country’s responsibility to protect it. Except that this ‘right’ was never mentioned in Goldin’s speech. The attempt to distort the artist’s words shows a specific desire to divert attention from the real problems: occupation, apartheid, genocide, as she herself pointed out.
Unsurprisingly, the German press moved in the same direction: they reported that ‘Israel haters cause tumult at exhibition opening’, of ‘malicious distortions of reality’ on Goldin’s part, even taking a patronising attitude in scolding the artist for ‘abusing her retrospective’.They went so far as to say that Director Biesenbach “turned the Neue Nationalgalerie into an ‘unsafe space’ for our Jewish fellow citizens by inviting Nan Goldin and her political takeovers”. Goldin is herself Jewish, but this did not seem to interest many in the media, who even described her as one of the “useful idiots of the enemies of the Jews: when Jews ally themselves with Hamas and Hezbollah”. According to their twisted logic, in order to criticise the crimes currently taking place in Palestine, a Jew must self-hate. An anomalous case is an article published in Stern, which is surprisingly factual and neutral.
The Beginning of the Controversy: The Symposium
The controversy surrounding Goldin’s exhibition started before its opening, with the symposium Art and Activism in Times of Polarization: A Discussion Space on the Middle East Conflict, scheduled to happen two days after the opening of the show. Ostensibly conceived to facilitate dialogue on a divisive topic, the event was organised by Anne Frank Education Centre director Meron Mendel and writer Saba-Nur Cheema. It became the focal point of criticism when Strike Germany, a collective of cultural workers advocating for a boycott of German institutions silent on Palestine, issued a critical Instagram post renaming it Ambiguity and Avoidance in Times of Genocide. Here the symposium was described as “largely dominated by genocide-denying Zionists, while pretending to offer multiple ‘nuanced’ positions” and as a “preemptive defense against any critique leveled at the museum’s director Klaus Biesenbach for presenting the work of a vocal anti-Zionist like Nan Goldin.” Their accusation was direct: the event’s true purpose was not open discourse but rather a strategic maneuver to shield the director and the Neue Nationalgalerie from backlash.
After initially liking the post, Goldin distanced herself from the symposium leaving a personal comment: “I want it to be clear that I was not aware of the symposium until an ally sent me the press release, which connected it to my name and my show. I wanted it canceled from the beginning, but I was only able to divorce my name. It is clear to me that the museum organized this symposium as a prophylactic to secure its position in the German discussion – in other words, to prove they do not support my politics. They knew who they were inviting”, she clarified, condemning the museum’s intentions. Goldin also explained that participants like Candice Breitz and Eyal Weizman (the founder of Forensic Architecture) had agreed to join the panel only out of solidarity with her, while acclaimed writer Masha Gessen – they too at the centre of another ‘scandal’ in Germany for comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto in an article in the New Yorker – was erroneously reported to have withdrawn, while had never even confirmed participation. “Organizers took so long to make the invitation official that I could no longer make it work with my schedule”, Gessen said. Other guests of the event like Berlin-based artist Hito Steyerl, photographer Raphael Malik, and Palestinian artist Muhammad Toukhy also cancelled their participation.
The symposium’s professed aim of encouraging dialogue stood in stark contrast to its execution. Layers of hyper-vigilant control permeated every aspect. Attendees received an email the evening prior to the event, requesting personal information of accompanying persons whose names had not been provided. Requests to transfer the ticket to persons other than the original buyer were rejected. Security measures were stricter than at the airport: at least two ID checks, bans on backpacks, wristbands and stamped hands upon entry. Attendees were required to sign declarations banning photography and recordings—an ironic measure for an event claiming to foster open dialogue.
Also troubling were the reports of arbitrary exclusions. Photojournalist Shirin Abedi, whose name was registered as an accompanying person the previous evening as requested, was denied entry, as was artist Adam Broomberg, barred even before his ticket was requested. Of the Broomberg case, it is worth noting that one of the symposium participants had suggested him as a potential guest representing a Jewish BDS supporter, after Meron Mendel, one of the organisers, lamented the difficulty in finding such a position. The suggestion was ignored. It was also reported that Broomberg was invited by one of the symposium panelists to contribute a comment to the event, but he was still not allowed entry. The result of all these measures was a large auditorium that was more empty than full.
The atmosphere at the entrance was tense and overtly controlled, although no organised protests took place. One guest described an incident where security forced them to remove a scarf in solidarity with Palestine. “I had four security guards jump on me”, they recounted. Another attendee remarked, “I’ve honestly never felt more unsafe”. Otherwise everything unfolded without any surprises, indeed in line with a second post by Strike Germany: “we’ve watched as a series of participants withdrew from the event, leaving an even more laughingly narrow minded cast of speakers than before. Gone are – amongst others – the few non-Zionist positions; what remains is a set of characters fully committed to German Staatsräson and genocide denial.” Highlights – if we want to call them such – include an intervention that tried to spread the widely debunked fake news of the Amsterdam riots between Maccabi hooligans and locals by falsely labelling them as ‘pogroms’, and the usual weaponisation of antisemitism.
The only two positive notes were the curator and editor María Inés Plaza Lazo, who took on the hard task of trying to balance the orientation of the symposium, and the artist Ruth Patir, who represented Israel at the Venice biennale. The latter offered interesting insights to the audience, stating that she doubts that Israel is a democracy, that she herself boycotts products from the illegal settlements, and urged German journalists to focus on reporting real news instead of when “this or that person likes a post on Instagram”, referring to several such articles by the German media against people who like content critical of Israel on social media. One wonders how quick the press would have been to accuse her of antisemitism, if only she had not been Israeli.
The Impossibility of a Real Dialogue
The controversies that accompanied Goldin’s exhibition and the symposium highlight a disheartening reality from several perspectives: the absence of genuine dialogue in Germany when it comes to Palestine, the monopoly of narrative in the current German cultural, institutional and political landscape, and the doggedness towards any voice not aligned with the Staatsräson. And when rare attempts – or supposed ones – to address the discourse are made by the institutional sphere, the result is the symposium, ostensibly focused on ‘polarisation, art and activism’, only to evade its central themes, including institutional silence, freedom of expression and cultural censorship. Discussions were reduced to vague and superficial exchanges, offering little less than a performative act to wash one’s conscience for having tried. Exceptions were rare; the prevailing atmosphere was one of mutual affirmation, faking debate by reinforcing established narratives.
What emerged is emblematic of a broader pattern in Germany: a rigid, state-sanctioned discourse that stifles critical voices. Institutions claim to support freedom of expression, yet perpetuate censorship and marginalize dissenting perspectives. Nan Goldin’s intervention laid bare this contradiction, but the institutional response remained predictable—defensive, aggressive, ultimately ineffective. Useful only to further undermine what remains – if any – of the credibility of mainstream media and institutions.
Many in the press have criticised how those who “complain about the lack of space for their voices are then the first to boycott an occasion for dialogue”. A short-sighted analysis, to say the least, if it comes to a false safe space created by people who deny or downplay the horrors currently taking place. After all, Goldin herself said that if she could, she would have had the symposium cancelled. Those who boycotted it simply respected her will.
