Auschwitz on the beach: performance on migrant tragedy canceled at documenta14 due to protests

The performance Auschwitz on the beach (“Auschwitz on the beach”) scheduled in the program of documenta14, the major contemporary art exhibition under way in Kassel(here is the review by Finestre Sull’Arte), will not take place. The performance would have consisted of reading a poem by the well-known Bologna-based activist Franco Berardi, better known as “Bifo,” against the backdrop of a soundtrack by Fabio Stefano Berardi and an image by Brazilian artist Dim Sampaio. Bifo was supposed to stand on a six-meter-high cube at the Fridericianum in Kassel reading his own composition to the audience. The initiative, however, faced protests from the public and some insiders (such as Charlotte Knobloch of the World Jewish Congress, who at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung spoke of a “grotesque” and “shameful” operation since “the Holocaust is a unique and unprecedented crime: any relativization or denial of it is forbidden”) who frowned upon the juxtaposition of the migrant tragedy and the Nazi concentration camps. The management of documenta14 therefore decided to cancel the event to respect those who might have been offended by the title of the performance.

“The intention of the performance,” explained following the criticism Adam Szymczyk, artistic director of documenta14, in a note on the documenta14 website, “was not to relativize the Holocaust. Because of its significance and its systemic nature of a state-organized destruction of an entire race, the Holocaust remains a unique event in human history. In contrast, Berardi’s intention is to locate in the Holocaust, with seriousness and responsibility, the ultimate boundary of reference for the extreme, violent and systemic injustice perpetuated by the national and transnational institutional bodies of Europe against the physical bodies of refugees who attempt to flee to Europe and die while fleeing, on land or at sea, or are detained in camps usually located outside Europe, or in nations located on its southern borders. These camps, which are heavily guarded by the police, are not transparent, nor are they made to guarantee a future for those incarcerated there. On the contrary, they serve to effectively remove the refugee ”problem“ from the view of Europeans. [...] We know very well what the result of such self-imposed blindness to the plight of Others who are persecuted and forgotten can be. The Holocaust was planned by the Nazi regime and punctually enacted by its officials and collaborators in Germany and the nations of Europe during a relatively short period of time, while the ”civilized“ world, following the decisions of its elected politicians, who ignored the evidence of the few reports then existing describing the tragedy of the Jews in the occupied nations, and through the passive attitude of most European citizens, decided not to watch, not to know, and not to act.”

In place of the performance, therefore, there will be a reading, also by Bifo, titled Shame on Us: A Reading and Discussion, which will take place in the Rotunda of the Fridericianum (the same place where “Auschwitz on the Beach” was supposed to take place) at 8:15 p.m. on Thursday, August 24. The themes will be the same: the direction of documenta14, in fact, does not intend to abandon discussion and critical thinking.

Image: the Fridericianum in Kassel. Credit

Auschwitz on the beach: performance on migrant tragedy canceled at documenta14 due to protests

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