Photo Georgianna Chiang
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, an artist whose work appeared prominently in this year’s Venice Biennale, said that her pro-Palestine views cost her an exhibition in Berlin and a $19,000 stipend associated with it.
The stipend was awarded to her earlier this month by the Günther Peill Foundation. As part of the award, Toranzo Jaeger also won an exhibition at the Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, a private museum in the German city of Düren, and $10,500 for the production of a catalogue associated with the show, which was scheduled for 2026.
Not long after she was named as a winner of the stipend, the funding and the associated show were canceled by the foundation and the museum. In a statement posted to social media, the foundation and the museum said that they had learned that Toranzo Jaeger has signed a letter circulated by the Strike Germany movement, which urges artists not to work with art institutions that “police the politics of their artists,” specifically those with pro-Palestine views.
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“During the discussions it became clear that the artist stands by her signature on the appeal, which the museum and the foundation expressly respect,” a statement attributed to the foundation, the museum, and Toranzo Jaeger said. “Since cooperation would imply that the museum and the foundation meet the conditions set out in STRIKE GERMANY and support the demands, they will not enter into this. Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, the Leopold Hoesch Museum and the Günther Peill Foundation have therefore mutually decided to refrain from the intended cooperation on the scholarship and exhibition.”
The statement said that the decision was reached by “mutual agreement,” but in an interview with ARTnews, Toranzo Jaeger contested this. “The institution and foundation bullied me into agreeing with their statement,” she said, adding that she felt she had little legal recourse to do anything else.
A spokesperson for the city of Düren, whose office represents the museum, said in an email to ARTnews, “From the outset, no pressure what so ever was put on the artist and a consensus based declaration has been reached. We were astonished that now Frieda presents this differently. Both the artist and the museum and foundation were saddened that this solution had to be found.”
Toranzo Jaeger, whose paintings of futuristic cars have been seen widely, in venues ranging from MoMA PS1 in New York to the Museo Jumex in Mexico City, said that the Günther Peill Foundation and Leopold-Hoesch-Museum stripped her of opportunities after the journalist Kito Nedo began asking questions about her.
In emails reviewed by ARTnews, Nedo, who has written for Suddeutsche Zeitung and served as a contributing editor for Frieze, contacted the foundation, the museum, and Toranzo Jaeger’s galleries, pointing out her signature on the Strike Germany letter. He also submitted screenshots of pro-Palestine Instagram posts that she had liked, and said he was seeking a statement from her. He did not state whether he was doing so for a story he was working on.
Reached by ARTnews, Nedo said that the emails were not for publication and declined to comment further. The Düren spokesperson confirmed that an unnamed journalist had alerted the foundation and the museum to Toranzo Jaeger’s support of Strike Germany.
Toranzo Jaeger called Nedo’s emails a form of “harassment.” She confirmed that she had liked certain pro-Palestine posts, including one from Daniela Ortiz, a fellow 2024 Venice Biennale alum who had posted an image of an upside down red triangle. That symbol has been used widely by pro-Palestine demonstrators, and though its origins date back more than a century, to the time of the Arab Revolt of 1917, the Anti-Defamation League has alleged that the symbol is meant to “glorify’ Hamas. Of the posts she liked, Toranzo Jaeger said, “All of them were pretty harmless, and all of them were things I reshared.”
Strike Germany, which has been supported by artists ranging from Jesse Darling to Lawrence Abu Hamdan, has sometimes been read as a boycott of German institutions, but Toranzo Jaeger said this was not the case—she did not view working with a German private museum as being at odds with the movement. Instead, she said she intended to use the resources disseminated by Strike Germany to negotiate with German institutions.
Moreover, she said she believed that Strike Germany’s concerns would be outmoded in two years’ time by a new political situation.
“I am not a perfect political subject,” she said. “I do not represent Strike Germany. But I am in solidarity.”
