{"id":324797,"date":"2017-09-06T11:13:32","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T10:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/documenta-14-exhibition-in-kassel-germany-the-censorship-and-defaming-of-art\/"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:13:32","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T10:13:32","slug":"documenta-14-exhibition-in-kassel-germany-the-censorship-and-defaming-of-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/documenta-14-exhibition-in-kassel-germany-the-censorship-and-defaming-of-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Documenta 14 exhibition in Kassel, Germany: The censorship and defaming of art"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Documenta 14 exhibition in Kassel, Germany: The censorship and defaming of art<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Sybille Fuchs<br \/>\n    <br \/>6 September 2017<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>Two works of art dealing with the fate of refugees and exiles have become the focus for fierce attacks at this year\u2019s documenta art exhibition in Kassel, in central Germany.<\/p>\n<div class=\"imageFull\" style=\"width:480px; oveflow:hidden;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/asset\/feff5878-1458-4149-adbc-2170236a4c2P\/image.jpg?rendition=image480\" srcset=\"\/asset\/feff5878-1458-4149-adbc-2170236a4c2P\/image.jpg?rendition=image960 2x\" width=\"480\" style=\"width:480px;\" \/><span>Fridericianum museum in Kassel, home of documenta<\/span><\/div>\n<p>The first target was a performance and poem by the Italian social commentator and media activist Franco \u201cBifo\u201d Berardi, who denounced the mass deaths of refugees in the Mediterranean. His piece was entitled \u201cAuschwitz on the Beach.\u201d Following protests, the performance and reading of his poem were canceled in what can only be regarded as an act of political censorship.<\/p>\n<p>The second controversy concerned an obelisk by the Nigerian artist Olu Oguibe, which was denounced as \u201cdegenerate art\u201d by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. \u201cDegenerate art\u201d was the term used by the Nazis in the 1930s to justify banning and suppressing all progressive art. The obelisk evokes the tragedy of the Nigerian civil war. Its pedestal bears the biblical quotation: \u201cI was a stranger and you cared for me\u201d in four languages.<\/p>\n<p>documenta 14 is one of Europe\u2019s leading exhibitions of contemporary art and takes place every five years in the city of Kassel. This year\u2019s exhibition stood out for the many artists addressing burning social problems such as war, immigration, oppression, the consequences of new walls and borders, and the destruction of nature and culture. The exhibition met with a mixed reaction, with many media outlets denouncing its political nature.<\/p>\n<p>An additional source of controversy was the fact that this year\u2019s documenta chose Athens as a second venue\u2014recalling the country\u2019s historic role as the cradle of&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/09\/06\/docu-s06.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Documenta 14 exhibition in Kassel, Germany: The censorship and defaming of art By Sybille Fuchs 6 September 2017 Two works of art dealing with the fate of refugees and exiles have become the focus for fierce attacks at this year\u2019s documenta art exhibition in Kassel, in central Germany. Fridericianum museum in Kassel, home of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-324797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}