Vienna Must Not Become More Like Kassel

Wiener Zeitung, January 25, 2023 (Commentary)

German original: https://www.wienerzeitung.at/meinung/kommentare/2175872-Wien-darf-nicht-verkasseln.html

by Edwin Baumgartner

"documenta 2022" and no end: The anti-Semitic tendencies of the Kassel art show are obvious. There is a risk of repetition, because in matters of art, politics' hands are tied. "The freedom of art can also protect against state intervention in cases of racist or anti-Semitic tendencies within the framework of proportionality," Berlin legal scholar Christoph Möllers has now stated.

The moral question is, of course, whether one would expose other ethnic groups, nations and/or religions to the same defenselessness as it happens in this special case with Jews and Israel.

Change of Scene.

In Vienna's Jewish Museum, an exhibition is running on alleged misunderstandings related to Jews and Israel. The exhibition wants to educate about Jews and Judaism, and it wants to do so in a humorous way. But it often allows for anti-Semitic readings, even though these are not intended. Nevertheless, more and more Jews feel irritated or hurt by this show, because: Some of the artworks and objects on display are contextualized in an inadequate or distorting way, writes Oskar Deutsch, president of the Jewish Community of Vienna, in a letter to museum director Barbara Staudinger.

Again, the question arises: Would one deal with other ethnicities, nations and/or religions in their museum in the same way? Or is the Jewish Museum just making an unintentional contribution to the "Kasselification" of Vienna?