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dedicated to culture, the Paulo Gustavo In these two cases, the exhibitions suffered Paulo, which served as a meeting point for
law, by the senator Paulo Rocha, the deliberate attacks to demoralize, through ruangrupa with Brazilian groups during
Aldir Blanc law 2, by the deputy Jandira exaggeratedly false and decontextualized the organization of the exhibition, came to
Feghali, and we are very involved as a accusations, culture in general, as it is a express its views on the matter, denying
forum of secretaries. It is a beautiful field identified as left-wing. the German newspaper and supporting
movement that is beyond the cultural Not by chance, this conservative wave documenta.
sector, so collective. was fundamental for the 2018 and now In a note published by e-flux , they recall
[1]
2022 elections in Brazil, and continued as a that Graziela Kunsch, the only Brazilian
institutions doCUmEnTA QUinzE [PAGES 30 To 34] platform for the current federal government, in documenta, is based on concepts of
CULTURE WAR which treated culture with disregard – even a Jewish-Hungarian pedagogue, Emmi
Pikler (1902-1984), in addition to presenting
ending with the Ministry of Culture – in
What’s behind the documenta fifteen addition to greatly reducing the scope of photos by a Jewish-Hungarian artist, Marian
controversies the Rouanet Law. Reissmann (1911-1991), which document the
By fABio CyPriAno What does this question have to do with practice of her countrywoman. The text also
the anti-Semitic debate in documenta vehemently points out possible motivations
the DisCussions that polarizeD the fifteen? Before the opening of the show, for the attacks: “The fair denunciation
100 DaYs of documenta fifteen, in Kassel, in June, groups of the German right had of anti-Semitic images is being used to
which finished at the end of last September, already demonstrated in Kassel, threatening delegitimize the entire exhibition, attack
need to be seen in a broader context, artists who defended Palestine. However, a decolonial agenda and oppose critical
within a concept created in 1991 by the it was at the opening itself that the theme thinking.”
sociologist James Davison Hunter in the gained dimension due to the immense The Scientific Committee, on the other
book Cultural Wars, published in the USA, People’s Justice mural. hand, fell into the trap of seeking to identify
and unprecedented in Brazil. Shown without trauma during 2002 in other works with the same connotation,
There, he points out how fundamentalist Australia, it has now been installed next thus reinforcing a generalization. In a
evangelicals, Jews and conservative to Documenta’s traditional headquarters, public statement in September, they
Catholics came together in a battle for Fridericianum. 12 meters wide, the panel asked that films by the Subversive Film
control of American secular culture, as contains, among dozens of images, two collective no longer be shown: “What is
occurred against the exhibition dedicated Jews, one wearing a Nazi police hat and highly problematic about this work is not
to photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, at the other a member of Mossad, the Israeli just the film documents, which contain anti-
the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, in secret service. Artists from the Taring Padi Semitic and anti-Zionist pieces, but also the
1989, censored after pedophilia allegations. collective, authors of the work, said it was artists’ comments. inserted between the
In a way, battles began there around a work against the violence of the Suharto films, in which they legitimize the hatred of
narratives that decontextualize works of military dictatorship in Indonesia. Israel and the glorification of terrorism in
art to, through an appealing discourse, It is important to remember that they the source material through their uncritical
create the impression that culture would have the same origin as ruangrupa, the discussion.”
be at the service of deconstructing moral collective responsible for the artistic The program that cites this note is the
standards, mostly against the traditional direction of documenta fifteen. However, in Tokyo Reels Film Festival, so called because
notion of family and nation. the German context, so sensitive to Jewish it exhibited a series of recently restored
Since then, actions within what came to issues after the Holocaust, these images films, which were under the custody of the
be called the “cultural war” have gained caused outrage and the work was withdrawn. Japanese director Masao Adachi, giving
strength, including here in Brazil, on “There is no intention to link it in any way visibility to a practically unknown archive
sometimes isolated occasions, such as to anti-Semitism. We are saddened that of a solidarity and anti-imperialist action.
the cancellation of Nan Goldin’s show, at details are understood differently from between Japan and Palestine.
Oi Futuro, in Rio, in 2011, or the censorship their original purpose”, Taring Padi said in Against this proposal of censorship by the
of the work Drawing with Rosary Beads, by a statement, in which they also apologized. Committee, the artists of the documenta
the artist Márcia X, at the exhibition Erotic However, an environment for polarization themselves stood up in a note released by
– The Senses of Art, at the Centro Cultural was already created, which favored those the e-flux entitled Somos Bravos, We are
[2]
Banco do Brasil in Rio, in 2006. who saw the possibility of a cultural war angry, we are sad, we are tired, we are united
In 2017, this war gained more organized around the show, whether through the – Letter from the lumbung Community.
contours, especially on account of the media, which insisted on questioning In addition to opposing all types of
mBl group (Movimento Brasil Livre), which the exhibition as a whole, and even the censorship, the letter spells out the culture
created a wave on social media against the institution itself: first, Sabine Schormann, war strategy: “It is obvious to us that the
exhibition Queermuseum: Cartographies director-general of documenta fifteen, left same mechanism of passing the buck
of Difference in Brazilian Art, at Santander her post in July, and the following month, from cyberbullies and racist bloggers to
Cultural in Porto Alegre, which was closed when the attacks continued, a Scientific mainstream media, to racist attackers on the
almost a month ahead of schedule, due to Support Committee was created to deal ground, for politicians and even academics,
allegations of apology for pedophilia and with the issue. it is being reproduced in every situation”.
zoophilia. Also in 2017, another exhibition Following the line of unfounded and For the group of artists, the accusation
suffered an avalanche of protests: the exaggerated accusations of the culture of anti-Semitism deserves to be seen from
35th Panorama of Brazilian Art at the São wars, the German newspaper Frankfurter another perspective: “It is in the context of
Paulo Museum of Modern Art, due to Allgemeine Zeitung stated that a Jewish documenta fifteen, and in the specificities
the performance The Beast, by Wagner collective from São Paulo had been invited of the German context, that we see that the
Schwartz, presented at its opening. and then uninvited. Casa do Povo, in São positioning of Palestinian artists is the point
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