After numerous artists reported being the target of racist and transphobic harassment in the German city of Kassel, Party Office, a New Delhi gallery and performance space invited to raise queer voices at Documenta 15, suspended all live programming on June 19. , the day after the opening of the exhibition.
In a statement posted on Instagram on July 4, the Party Office further explained. “All of our guests are black, dalit, POC and trans* people. Right now as hosts we feel completely disabled by the current situation, many of us have c/PTSD triggered multiple times, our mental health is at risk as well as our physical safety.”
This announcement, since taken down due to fears of prolonged harassment, is a stark contradiction to the messaging Documenta 15 used to promote this year’s festival. The art direction, managed by Indonesian art collective ruangrupa, revolves around the concept of a “lumbunga”, a building where the community’s harvest is stored and distributed evenly. In this spirit, the programming of Documenta 15 emphasizes inclusivity, kinship and equality.
Ruangrupa invited Vidish-Fadesch, founder of the Party Office, and curator Shaunak Mahbubani to program club events and concerts at the satellite venue in Kassel. Their festival program, Queer Time: Kinships & Architectures, presented an international cohort of more than 28 transfeminist artists creating art about rest, parties and radical pleasure.
But before Documenta began, the curatorial team of the Party Office was the target of xenophobic harassment. Fadescha and Mahbubani’s temporary residence and exhibition space, which they share with the Palestinian art collective The Question of Funding, were vandalized with the word “Peralta” — a possible reference to Spanish far-right and neo-Nazi youth leader Isabel Peralta — and the number 187, a graffiti symbol that refers to murder.
In response to this incident, Fadescha and Mahbubani asked Documenta to provide a security plan they could follow in the event of a hate crime. This would be shared with the curatorial team, their artists and the predominantly queer, transgender and BIPOC people attending the club central to Queer Time. Instead, they say, Documenta organizers told them to rely on a private security firm they hired and the local police.
When the club opened for previews on June 15, the Party Office posted its code of conduct on every door in the venue, as well as online. He informed visitors that the awareness team would intervene in any unsafe situations and had the right to remove people from the premises.
But Akbar Mehta, curatorial advisor for Party Office, told Hyperallergic that as the festival entered its first day of press and VIP previews, one of the private security guards had to be removed from his space for verbally and physically harassing queer attendees. Documenta provided Hyperallergic with a statement, which is included below, but has not yet responded to a request for comment regarding the allegations against the security officer.
After the incident, the Party Office began implementing a strict door policy that did not allow cisgender Whites to enter their space.
“It is in line with our curatorial ethos,” added Mahbubani. “But we were met with verbal and gestural aggression from white men who asked to leave our space.”
Things reached a boiling point when another curatorial adviser, Joey Cannizzaro, and two other members of the Party Office who wish to remain anonymous, were allegedly targeted by transphobic locals on July 2, according to accounts shared on social media. Cannizzaro said they escaped the attack by running into a hardware store across the street from the Party Office. When police arrived on the scene to help, they instead handcuffed Cannizzaro because he wasn’t carrying their passport, two eyewitnesses told Hyperallergic. Fearing for their community, the Party Office has canceled all live programming.
(Cannizarro was eventually taken off the cuffs and released without charge. The Kassel Police Department has not yet responded to Hyperallergic’s request for comment.)
All Queer Time artists have united to ask Documenta’s CEO Sabine Schormann to issue a statement warning festival-goers of the increased danger, but no public statement has yet been issued about the recent incidents of racism and transphobia. Documenta, however, released multiple statements about the removal of an artwork by the Indonesian art collective Taring Padi, “People’s Justice” (2002), which included anti-Semitic imagery. The decision to remove the work came amid a months-long saga sparked by accusations of anti-Semitism from a pro-Israel Antideutsche blog over Documenta’s inclusion of artists associated with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In a statement provided to Hyperallergic, festival organizers said: “Documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH regrets the incident that occurred in a public space on July 2, 2022 and takes it extremely seriously. We are in contact with the artists involved from the Party Office, as well as the competent local authorities in order to clarify the circumstances of the incident. Dokumenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH took additional measures and offered support.”
The party office, however, wants Documenta to issue a public apology. “My main wish is for them to admit that they didn’t make a security plan, to apologize for not making a plan and to actually publish the plan. Because it will happen again. It’s a powder keg they’ve made,” Cannizzaro said.
Cannizzaro added that some solutions could include hiring people trained in de-escalation, providing officers not connected to the German criminal justice system and creating a hotline to contact a dedicated emergency team. Documenta has a dedicated helpline, but according to Cannizzaro, it took more than 45 minutes for anyone to answer a call for help while in danger.
Since the program at Documenta has been cancelled, Party Office is moving its events live to Berlin and online, and putting other work into publication. Mahbubani hopes to receive financial restitution for all the additional costs and labor it will cost.
“We have to react to the hostile situation. After a year of planning, we have to spend more work continuing this programming in another form. “We never got to a space where we could do our artwork,” said Mahbubani.
While Fadescha and Mahbubani work to save their program, their absence is already being felt in Kassel. A solidarity sticker appeared on the pole: “We are missing the Party office”.
How do I get to Documenta Kassel?
Arrival by train The central train station for arriving passengers is ICE-Bahnhof Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe. From there you can take the Regiotram or other regional trains (platforms 9 and 10) to the main train station (Hauptbahhof Kassel) for free with your train ticket. Travel time is about 3 minutes.
Where is the documentation kept? Read also : Arts Federation grant improves intercom system at Civic Theater.
How to get to Kassel?
The nearest airport to Kassel is Paderborn Airport (PAD), which is 69.2 km away. Other nearby airports include Hanover (HAJ) (127.7 km), Frankfurt (FRA) (155.2 km), Cologne Bonn (CGN) (173 km) and Dusseldorf (DUS) (190.2 km).
How many days to see documenta Kassel?
What is documenta? Documenta is one of the most important exhibitions or art forums for contemporary art. It takes place every five years and lasts 100 days. See the article : ‘Rogue Black Holes’ may not be ‘Rogue’ or ‘Black Holes’. Therefore, it is often called the “100 Day Museum”.
Does Kassel have an airport?
Kassel Airport (formerly Kassel-Calden Airport, German Flughafen Kassel) (IATA: KSF, ICAO: EDVK) is a minor international airport serving the German city of Kassel in the state of Hesse. Read also : The US has announced the end of testing anti-satellite weapons.
Is documenta a biennial?
He therefore conceived the Documenta project as part of the Bundesgartenschau, the biennial horticultural exhibition located in Kassel at the time.
