The documenta fifteen controversies in 2022 foreshadowed much of the current debate around anti-semitism and artistic freedom in Germany. In its wake, the Kassel Art Show has taken steps in trying to prevent another scandal at documenta’s 16th edition, due in 2027. After much back and forth, the Kassel Art Show has released a Code of Conduct that is to bind both the festival institution documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH and each future edition’s artistic direction to a set of rules and principles. But can documenta retain its international renown as a contemporary art festival that pushes boundaries by staying out of headlines?
Documenta is jointly funded by the City of Kassel, the State of Hesse, and the Federal Culture Fund, and while the institution itself is permanent, each edition of the festival is considered a unique event, with an artistic direction that sets the curatorial principles, programme and even branding of their edition.
In 2022, the Indonesian collective Ruangrupa directed documenta fifteen, with a vision based on platforming artists from the global south, focusing on the work of collectives over individual artists, and highlighting artistic processes by exhibiting some of these at work during the show, sometimes without finished pieces. Above all, their intent was to question and even undermine many of the assumptions of the creative establishment.
In this context, the work of one collective, Taring Padi, also from Indonesia, attracted searing media attention for their work People’s Justice, which depicted several figures interpreted as displaying anti-semitic codes or imagery. The huge banner was subsequently removed, but documenta was forced to apologise, provide contextualising statements, and face continuous calls for the entire event to be closed early. Several other works and collectives subsequently faced similar accusations.
By the end of documenta fifteen, after many reports and statements, including by the newly created Scientific Advisory Board and Federal Culture Minister Claudia Roth (GRÜNE) who suggested the federal government should play a more direct role in documenta’s curation, the documenta fifteen’s closing report proposed the creation of a code of conduct to avoid similar conflicts going forward. The idea was to find a balance between enshrining a set of morals to avoid excessive controversy while protecting freedom of expression for artists.
Supporters of the code argue that enshrined values like protecting human dignity and preventing discrimination of any kind are needed, adding that it is these values that enable the environment of freedom in which documenta flourishes. On the other hand, groups like #standwithdocuemnta, who ran a petition against the Code, see artistic freedom of expression threatened by a code of conduct, and in the worst case believe this could lead to excessive government or institutional control of documenta’s curation, threatening its reputation as an important avant-garde arts event.
Despite this debate, the Code of Conduct has now been drawn up and released. It acknowledges the tensions in this debate by stating documenta’s “obligation and responsibility … to guarantee protection against anti-Semitism, racism, and any other form of group-related misanthropy.” In the next sentence, it affirms its commitment to “artistic freedom and the free space for the expression of attitudes and opinions … which is indispensable for any artistic activity and is characterised by tolerance and an open view of the world.” But how will that tension actually be resolved?
There is an indication that documenta will try to let any tension between these principles hang, by reserving the right to distance itself from artworks it deems in violation of the code of conduct, and to add “contextualization in the immediate visual context of the exhibited works of art.” There is no mention of a right to remove artworks due to a breach of the code, suggesting an “agree to disagree” approach where documenta would state its issues with controversial works but not remove them. Apart from the removal of People’s Justice, this was the approach taken with all other controversial works in 2022.
On the other hand, while there is little detail on how such judgements would be made, the Code makes the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism binding. The German Bundestag has adopted the same definition since 2017, and repeated it late last year with a new resolution on protecting Jewish life in Germany. This contested definition is criticised for running the risk of conflating any criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism.
Ultimately it will likely be the Scientific Advisory Board that advises on the final decisions regarding the application of the code. A new board was appointed at the end of January for a five year term, including the 16th edition in 2027. It is made up of Tania Coen-Uzzielli, director of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Nicole Deitelhoff, Professor of International Relations and Theories of Global Order at Goethe University Frankfurt, Susanne Gaensheimer, director of the Kunstsammlung NRW, Diane Lima, a Brazilian curator and academic, Christoph Menke, professor of philosophy at the Goethe University Frankfurt, and Thomas Sparr, author, literary scholar and editor-at-large at the Suhrkamp Verlag.
Moreover, Naomi Beckwith was named as the new Artistic Director of documenta 16 at the end of last year. The code of conduct states that she must present a case for how she will comply with the code alongside her curatorial concept, which is due in mid-March. How the American curator and art historian plans to balance tensions will be telling for documenta’s next edition. Lord Mayor of Kassel and Chairman of the documenta Aufsichtsrat (board of supervisors) Sven Schoeller says that the new code of conduct is “strengthening an open culture of discourse” by engaging against discrimination and committing to artistic freedom. Whether documenta will continue to be an important space for that culture of discourse remains to be seen, but an aversion to scandal and a Code of Conduct that seems to want to keep documenta out of the headlines is surely not the way to foster such a culture.
