Photo Fabian Sommer/dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images
After Nan Goldin gave an impassioned speech about Israel’s war in Gaza on Friday night, German politicians swiftly denounced the artist, who is currently the subject of a just-opened survey at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
In a statement to the German press agency dpa, German culture minister Claudia Roth said that Goldin’s speech contained “unbearably one-sided views on Israel.”
Roth also commented on the behavior of protesters at the event, whose chants of “Free Palestine” drowned out a subsequent speech from Neue Nationalgalerie director Klaus Biesenbach. “Such behavior is absolutely unacceptable and it is an attack on the museum and cultural work, which I condemn in the strongest possible terms,” Roth said.
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Joe Chialo, Berlin’s culture minister, echoed Roth’s language and accused Goldin of “obliviousness to history.”
Jewish groups also fiercely condemned Goldin, who is herself Jewish. “Whoever invites BDS gets BDS,” said Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, in an interview with Tagesspiegel, a reference to the pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. Under a recent resolution by German Parliament, artists who support BDS are not allowed to receive financial support. (Goldin has not stated that she supports the BDS movement.)
In the opening of Goldin’s address, she spoke about how anti-Semitism had been “weaponized” in Germany, a country that has at times attempted to discourage artists from making public statements in support of Palestine. She also spoke of a swell of Islamophobia in Germany, something she said the country’s leaders had “ignored.”
“The ICC is talking about genocide. The UN is talking about genocide. Even the Pope is talking about genocide,” she said. “Yet we’re not supposed to talk about this as genocide. Are you afraid to hear this, Germany?”
Immediately after her speech, Biesenbach also addressed the crowd to note he disagreed with Goldin. “The Hamas attack on the Jewish state on October 7, 2023 was a cruel act of terror that cannot be justified by anything,” he said, calling for the release of the hostages taken that day and noting that he had spent time in Israel himself. Then he added, “At the same time, we empathize with civilians in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, whose suffering cannot be overlooked.”
The Neue Nationalgalerie has published Biesenbach’s statement on its website. “The Neue Nationalgalerie explicitly distances itself from the statements made by the protesters and emphasizes its commitment to freedom of expression, respectful dialogue, and mutual respect,” the museum said in a statement of its own.
The museum did not publish a transcription of Goldin’s speech, though video of it has been posted to social media by those present.
Goldin’s show had been the subject of controversy in Germany before it even opened because the artist had previously voiced support for Palestine. Some journalists noted that Goldin had signed a letter that appeared in Artforum that called for a ceasefire in Gaza. That letter initially did not contain mention of the October 7 Hamas attack, which certain German publications viewed as an endorsement of antisemitism.
The Neue Nationalgalerie brought on political scientist Saba-Nur Cheema and historian and author Meron Mendel to organize a symposium on anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and the war in Gaza that was set for the Sunday after Goldin’s opening. Goldin claimed that the symposium was a rejection of her politics and that she had not been aware of the event prior to its announcement. Afterward, a number of participants initially expected to appear in the event—among them artists Hito Steyerl, Candice Breitz, and Eyal Weizman—dropped out.
That symposium took place as planned this past weekend in a significantly pared-back form. The final list of participants included Ruth Patir, Israel’s representative at the Venice Biennale; Osama Zatar, a Palestinian artist based in Vienna; and Leon Kahane, a German artist who has made work about his family’s Jewish heritage.
