A controversial event titled ‘Art and Activism in Times of Polarization’, which is due to take place on Sunday at the Neue Nationalgalerie, has this week seen a number of artists withdraw their participation. Hito Steyerl will no longer give the keynote speech, while artists Candice Breitz and Eyal Weizman (founder and director of Forensic Architecture) have also pulled out.
Organised by writer Saba-Nur Cheema and Anne Frank Education Centre director Meron Mendel, the symposium aims to ‘address questions regarding the responsibility of political art in the current context of the Middle East conflict. In particular, the themes of anti-Semitism, racism, artistic freedom, and expressions of solidarity within the art world will be discussed.’ Participants in the event include Ruth Patir, who is representing Israel at the Venice Biennale, and Muhammad Toukhy, a Palestinian artist based in Haifa.
Last week, grassroots organisation Strike Germany wrote on Instagram that the event was intended to conceal finanical support from the ‘hard-line Zionist German state’ of the Neue Nationalgalerie, claiming the symposium ‘only thinly veils’ the organiser’s ‘obvious opposition to the Palestinian struggle and to all attempts of addressing it in the cultural sphere’. Steyerl withdrew from the event shortly after.
An exhibition by Nan Goldin, a prominent pro-Palestine supporter, is due to open at the Neue Nationalgalerie this weekend. Goldin stated on Instagram that she had been unaware of the symposium until she was sent a press release that connected it to her show at the gallery. ‘I wanted it canceled from the beginning, but I was only able to divorce my name,’ she wrote. ‘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.’
