Expert Commitee for Documenta Established

In the future, docu­menta fifteen will be accom­panied by a seven-member panel of experts in order to come to terms with the anti-Semitic inci­dents that occurred during the exhi­bition. Nicole Deitelhoff will chair the committee. The panel includes scholars with aca­demic exper­tise in the fields of anti-Semitism, perspec­tives from global contexts and postco­lonia­lism, art, and consti­tutio­nal law. In light of the anti-Semitic inci­dents, the Docu­menta Super­viso­ry Board deci­ded on July 15, 2022, to take a number of measures to come to terms with them, including the appoint­ment of a specialist scientific moni­toring committee.

The propo­sal for the appoint­ment of the expert scientific support was prepared by Angela Dorn, Hessian Mini­ster for Science and the Arts (HMWK), and Dr. Susanne Völker, Head of the Depart­ment of Culture of the City of Kassel, on behalf of the sharehol­ders of docu­menta und Museum Fride­ricia­num gGmbH. The super­viso­ry board appro­ved this propo­sal and recom­mended it to the sharehol­ders' meeting, which also confir­med it, as the HMWK stated in a press release dated August 1, 2022.

"Our expert scientific moni­toring has one central goal: to come to terms with how the anti-Semitic inci­dents at docu­menta fifteen could have occurred and to deve­lop recommen­dations on how to deal with them in the future, both within the framework of the current exhi­bition and beyond it, so that this does not happen again," said the chairwo­man of the panel, Prof. Dr. Deitel­hoff.

The scholars are respon­sible for the initial stockta­king of the proces­ses, structu­res and recep­tions surroun­ding docu­menta fifteen, are to make recommen­dations for the reapprai­sal and discuss which aspects require more in-depth scholarly analysis. They will also advise on the analysis of possi­ble further anti-Semitic imagery and language as well as works already iden­tified as anti-Semitic. The adviso­ry results and posi­tions will be presen­ted to the super­visory board and the sharehol­ders, who will make them available to docu­menta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH and the curators and enter into a dialogue on them. Curatorial respon­sibi­lity remains the expli­cit task of the artistic director ruangrupa.

In addi­tion to Nicole Deitel­hoff, the scientific advisory board continues to include: Prof. Dr. Marion Acker­mann, General Direc­tor of the Dresden State Art Collec­tions, Prof. Dr. Julia Bernstein, Professor of Discri­mina­tion and Inclu­sion in the Immi­gration Soci­ety, Frankfurt Univer­sity of Applied Sciences, Marina Chernivsky, Psychologist and Executive Director of the Counseli­ng Center for Anti-Semitic Violence OFEK e. V., Prof. Peter Jelavich, Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Prof. Dr. Christoph Möllers, Professor of Public Law and Philosophy of Law, Humboldt University, Berlin, and Prof. Dr. Facil Tesfaye, Junior Professor at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Hong Kong. Other scholars may also be called upon to serve as experts.