DrAllegations against the art gallery Documentathey are showing Artworks with anti-Semitic motifs, persuaded officials to take the first step. The work of Indonesian collective artist Taring Padi, who clearly serves up an anti-Jewish cliché, is obscured.
The document announced that the Indonesian artist group “Taring Padi” responsible for the work of “People’s Justice” along with management and artistic direction decided to cover up the relevant banner on the Friedrichsplatz square in Kassel and install annotation.
Tring Buddy said her work was “in no way related to anti-Semitism”. “We are saddened that the details of this sign were misunderstood beyond its original purpose. We apologize for the injuries that occurred in this regard.”
Representatives of Jewish organizations, politicians and the media had raised clear criticism of the banner. “My personal impression is that there are anti-Semitic images here,” Hessen State Art Minister Angela Dorn (the Greens) said Monday in Wiesbaden. The Minister of State for Culture made a similar statement Claudia Roth (Green color). This is where artistic freedom finds its limits. “Human dignity, protection against anti-Semitism, as well as against racism and any form of hatred for human beings are the basis of our coexistence,” Roth said.
“I crossed a red line”
Chairman of the Central Council of Jews, Joseph SchusterHe called on those responsible for the document to draw conclusions. A red line has been crossed. According to a media report, the prosecutor’s office has since been called.
The association “WerteInitiative – German Jewish Attitudes” in Berlin explained that in the work in question “a Jew is drawn like a vampire with side sutures, fangs, snake tongue, bloodshot eyes and an SS rune on his hat. The Mossad agent depicted with the Jewish Star of David features a pig’s face”, The values initiative says. Its president Elio Adler spoke of “classic state-backed anti-Semitism”, “absolute dam explosion” and “open hatred of Jews”.
‘Appalling at the absolute hatred of the Jews’
The head of the Jewish community in Munich and Upper Bavaria, Charlotte Knobloch, was “horrified by the absolute hatred of Jews” shown in the photograph. “People with SS side strings and runes, as well as a pig’s head with ‘Mossad’ written on it: This is so clumsy and unequivocally anti-Semitic that one wonders why all the long thread of conversations and debates in the lead up to the document was really needed.” If only such an image could still be shown in the middle of Kassel.”
Knobloch criticized the move, which was initially announced on Monday evening, to cover part of the painting and “framing” it as “ridiculous”. The “minimum” is that officials completely remove anti-Semitic images from the public space. This, she said, is also in the interest of other artists.
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